CSE 2023 Optional Subjects

UPSC exam is conducted in three stages- Prelims, Mains and Interview. The Mains examination stage comprises of several papers. One of the paper is of Optional Subject conducted on 5^th day of Mains exam.

Optional subject is the subject which the candidate has to choose himself/herself based on his or her interest out of the list of optional subjects provided by UPSC.

There are 2 papers for each Optional Subject. For example, if your optional subject is Public Administration, then there will two papers of Public Administration- Paper 1 in morning shift and Paper 2 in afternoon shift. Each of these paper carries 250 marks.

Below is the list of Optional Subjects offered by UPSC

How to choose an optional subject?

Optional subject is one of the deciding factors of the final ranking that a candidate gets in IAS exam. Hence, optional subject must be chosen with utmost care and consideration before filing the UPSC application.

Below is a list of few criteria’s which students may consider while choosing the optional subject:

• A subject for which superior coaching services can be found.
• The subject that aligns with their educational background.
• The subject should be scoring
• The length of syllabus of the subject (more the length, more time it will take to cover the syllabus)
• The subject that is widely chosen by students.
• A subject that is straightforward or captivating to them.
• The subject that has abundant study resources and materials available.
• The optional subject that many aspirants have used to pass the IAS mains exam.
• Interesting to study or that holds candidates interest
• Subjects with high syllabus overlap with General Studies

Below is the list of UPSC optional subject success rate for the year 2017