UPSC CSE prelims 2025 question paper review: What students, teachers said?

UPSC CSE prelims 2025 question paper left aspirants stunned with a tough CSAT and tricky GS paper. Here's what students and mentors said about the exam's difficulty, surprises, and expected cut-off

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) conducted the Civil Services Preliminary Examination on May 26, 2025, and once again, the paper lived up to its reputation for unpredictability. 

 

Aspirants felt that this year, the paper 1 was a bit easier than last year's prelims exam. However, some believe that the question paper was time-consuming.

 

While General Studies (GS) Paper 1 offered a mixed bag of familiar and tricky questions, the CSAT paper left many aspirants stunned. Here's a breakdown of what students and teachers had to say about the exam. 

 

CSAT 2025: Qualifying or eliminating?

Meant to be a qualifying paper, CSAT turned out to be the true eliminator this year. With tough comprehension passages and intricate reasoning questions, many aspirants found it far beyond their expectations.

 

Mudit Gupta, a UPSC mentor, in a statement to The Indian Express, said, “This year’s CSAT was one of the most difficult papers ever. The paper, which UPSC says is qualifying in nature, is actually ‘eliminating’ in nature.”

 

Many students echoed similar sentiments on social media, calling the paper “a trap disguised as a formality.”

History: Surprising sweet spot

Amid the overall difficulty, one section that offered relief was History and Art & Culture. With 16 questions – 9 of them from Modern Indian History – students found it relatively easy.

 

Shikhar Sachan, a civil services mentor, called the History paper easiest in the past five years and told The Indian Express, “The History section was arguably the easiest in the last five years.”

 

Questions ranged from the Indus Valley’s Dancing Girl statue to Portuguese fruits and historical personalities like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, offering both diversity and simplicity.  ALSO READ | UPSC Calendar 2026 out: Check prelims, mains & other competitive exam dates

Polity: Familiar yet confusing

Polity featured standard topics such as the President, Panchayati Raj, and Ordinances, but the trick lay in the framing of questions. UPSC’s notorious “How many statements are correct?” format confused even well-prepared candidates.

 

“Every straightforward topic had at least one cleverly crafted statement. That was enough to confuse even the best-prepared,” added Mudit Gupta. Arguably, the Polity section is the easiest in the past five years.

Economy: Conceptual meets calculative

With 17 questions, the Economy section was both conceptual and quantitative. It included topics such as fiscal deficit calculations, RBI policies, UPI, and agricultural taxation.

 

“There was a strong focus on energy and minerals critical to the green economy,”

noted Banke Bihar, Economy mentor (The Indian Express).

 

Students described it as mentally taxing and praised the real-world relevance of the questions.

Science, tech, and international relations: Mixed bag

Science and Technology featured both trending topics like electric vehicles and deep learning, as well as conceptual questions. While some found it manageable, others struggled with the tricky wording.

 

International Relations had only five questions, mostly centred around organisations like BIMSTEC and NATO, with the EU’s Nature Restoration Law being a surprise element.

 

This year, the science and tech section was tougher than last year, demanding a deeper conceptual understanding. 

Tough GS, tougher CSAT

Overall, aspirants described the 2025 Prelims as lengthy, mentally exhausting, and layered with traps. With CSAT acting as a gatekeeper rather than a qualifier, mentors expect the cut-off to drop this year.

 

One student summed it up perfectly: “UPSC didn’t test what we knew—it tested how calmly we could think under pressure.”