Search and compare GS Paper I subject ranges, trend lines, static-current mix, and source labels so your UPSC plan accounts for uncertainty.
0
Subject groups mapped
0
Can reach 18+ questions
0
Marked volatile
0
Reference sources tracked
UPSC does not publish subject tags. Use ranges and volatility to decide depth, revision frequency, and risk.
Current Affairs/Misc spans 8-25 questions, so it needs steady revision without assuming a fixed count.
4 groups are current-heavy. Link them to monthly revision instead of treating current affairs as one isolated subject.
Actual question counts per subject across UPSC Prelims GS Paper I from 2016 to 2026. Hover or tap a cell to see the exact count.
| Subject | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polity | 16 | 13 | 11 | 15 | 17 | 14 | 20 | 12 | 18 | 22 | 11 | 15.4 |
| History | 17 | 14 | 18 | 15 | 20 | 13 | 16 | 12 | 15 | 10 | 14 | 14.9 |
| Geography | 12 | 14 | 8 | 13 | 9 | 17 | 11 | 18 | 10 | 6 | 13 | 11.9 |
| Economy | 18 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 11 | 15 | 8 | 13 | 17 | 10 | 14 | 13.5 |
| Environment & Ecology | 14 | 18 | 12 | 22 | 15 | 10 | 19 | 8 | 16 | 21 | 13 | 15.3 |
| Science & Tech | 8 | 5 | 11 | 7 | 14 | 6 | 9 | 4 | 10 | 12 | 7 | 8.5 |
| Current Affairs/Misc | 20 | 25 | 14 | 18 | 8 | 21 | 16 | 24 | 12 | 19 | 15 | 17.5 |
| Art & Culture | 6 | 4 | 8 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4.8 |
| International Relations | 4 | 6 | 3 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 4.8 |
Data compiled from multiple analysis sources; question counts may vary depending on source tagging.
Sort by range, filter by consistency, and search sub-topics or sources. The bands are intentionally cautious because source tagging differs.
8-25% of GS Paper I
Current-affairs heavy
Drishti IAS, ForumIAS, PW OnlyIAS, InsightsIAS, UPSC papers
This is not a separate syllabus box in the exam; it cuts across economy, polity, environment, science, and IR.
7-22% of GS Paper I
Mostly static
Drishti IAS, Vajiram & Ravi, ForumIAS, UPSC papers
High-yield every cycle, but the exact count moves sharply. Treat as a core subject, not a guaranteed fixed block.
8-22% of GS Paper I
Current-affairs heavy
Drishti IAS, ForumIAS, InsightsIAS, NEXT IAS, UPSC papers
A must-cover subject because UPSC often blends static ecology with species, conventions, and recent reports.
10-20% of GS Paper I
Mostly static
Drishti IAS, ForumIAS, InsightsIAS, UPSC papers
Modern history is the safest recurring zone; ancient, medieval, and culture tagging often differs across analyses.
6-18% of GS Paper I
Static + current
Drishti IAS, Vajiram & Ravi, NEXT IAS, UPSC papers
Map-linked and environment-linked questions make source categorisation uneven. Keep atlas work continuous.
8-18% of GS Paper I
Static + current
Drishti IAS, Vajiram & Ravi, PW OnlyIAS, UPSC papers
The recurring base is conceptual, but annual budget, schemes, and RBI context decide many question frames.
4-14% of GS Paper I
Current-affairs heavy
Drishti IAS, PW OnlyIAS, NEXT IAS, UPSC papers
Low to medium count, but questions can be highly current. Use monthly current affairs to filter what matters.
2-8% of GS Paper I
Static + current
Drishti IAS, ForumIAS, InsightsIAS, UPSC papers
Small but scorable if you revise visual identifiers, traditions, and culture-in-news links.
2-8% of GS Paper I
Current-affairs heavy
Vajiram & Ravi, ForumIAS, NEXT IAS, UPSC papers
Direct IR counts are usually modest, but the topic leaks into economy, security, environment, and current affairs.
Ranges are cautious bands from public analyses and official papers. UPSC does not publish official subject tags.
Is a subject gaining or losing importance? Calculated by comparing the last 3 years' average to the first 3 years in our data set.
Subjects gaining significance recently
Subjects with decreasing relative focus
Steady and consistent historical anchors
Direction compares average of 2024–2026 vs 2016–2018. >1.1x = Rising, <0.9x = Declining.
Treat stable conceptual anchors differently from high-share volatile areas and smaller score-separating subjects.
Start early because the base concepts recur and source labels usually agree enough to plan confidently.
Must cover, but do not build a plan around a guaranteed number of questions.
Lower average frequency, still useful for rank separation and easier factual wins.
Weightage is useful when it shapes revision behavior, not when it becomes a prediction chart.
Use the lower end as minimum coverage and the upper end as maximum risk. High upper ranges deserve regular revision.
Keep static subjects on long revision loops, then attach current-affairs-heavy areas to monthly review.
Do not mark UPSC as one checklist. Track polity, economy, environment, history, and current affairs separately.
Start with Economy and History for conceptual base, then expand to high-share volatile areas.
After each subject block, solve previous questions and note whether your weakness is concepts, elimination, or facts.
Revisit this plan after each Prelims paper and public answer-key cycle, normally around May-June.
Specific advice for each UPSC Prelims subject, covering what to prioritise, how to revise, and common traps.
Constitution provisions, Parliament procedures, Judiciary structure, fundamental rights and DPSP debates.
Solve one PYQ set per chapter after reading Laxmikanth. Attach recent SC judgments as current-affairs updates rather than treating them as separate notes.
Memorising article numbers without understanding their application. UPSC tests application, not rote recall.
Modern India (freedom movement and post-independence consolidation) is the highest-yield era. Ancient and Medieval need selective coverage of major dynasties, cultural developments, and associated terminologies.
Read in timeline order once, then switch to problem-based revision — for example, revision of all socio-religious reform movements together across modern and medieval periods.
Over-investing in niche ancient and medieval facts. Focus on visually identifiable material (architecture, paintings, inscriptions) for culture overlap.
Indian geography (physical, economic, social) and mapping. Climate, monsoons, and resource distribution appear regularly.
Use an atlas daily for 10-15 minutes. Link geographical phenomena to current events — floods, glacial bursts, mining policy, interlinking of rivers.
Reading geography as a purely theoretical subject without looking at maps. Mapping questions are often the easiest marks in the paper.
Budget, fiscal policy, banking, inflation, growth measurement, and government schemes are the core recurring themes.
Build conceptual clarity first (money, banking, fiscal deficit, GDP calculation), then layer current data from the Economic Survey and Budget highlights.
Chasing every new scheme or index name without understanding the underlying economic concept. Group schemes by policy objective.
Biodiversity hotspots, protected areas (national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, biosphere reserves), climate change mechanisms, species in news, environmental conventions.
Maintain a running list of species, protected areas, and reports mentioned in the news. Revise this list monthly rather than cramming before the exam.
Treating environment as a static subject. A large fraction of questions link current news to static ecology. Monthly current affairs revision is non-negotiable.
Space missions (ISRO), biotechnology (CRISPR, mRNA, gene therapy), defence tech, digital technology, and health tech.
Filter through monthly current affairs. Government schemes and international reports in sci-tech are more frequently asked than deep scientific concepts.
Going too deep into scientific mechanisms. UPSC expects awareness of what a technology does and its significance, not its engineering details.
Government schemes, reports and indices (Global Hunger Index, Ease of Doing Business, etc.), institutions, places in news, awards, cross-subject current facts.
Maintain a monthly digest and tag each item to a subject (polity, economy, environment, etc.). This prevents current affairs from feeling like an infinite checklist.
Treating current affairs as an isolated subject. Most current-affairs questions overlap with economy, polity, environment, or IR. Revise through the lens of each subject.
Architecture (temple styles, cave architecture, Indo-Islamic), painting traditions, dance forms, UNESCO World Heritage sites in India, GI tags.
Use visual revision — look at images of monuments, paintings, and dance forms rather than reading descriptions. Link culture developments to current news (restoration projects, new GI tags).
Trying to memorise exhaustive lists. Focus on the most recognisable examples of each tradition and their distinguishing features.
India's neighbourhood policy, major multilateral groupings (UN, BRICS, SCO, QUAD, G20), key treaties and agreements, security issues.
Structure revision by region (South Asia, Indo-Pacific, Europe, etc.) and by theme (trade, security, climate). Link organisation summits and bilateral visits to current affairs.
Cramming random facts about every country. Focus on India-centric relationships and recent developments in the last 12-18 months.
This page combines public paper analyses and official previous papers. UPSC does not release official subject-wise labels.
Common questions about UPSC Prelims weightage and how to use it responsibly.
No. UPSC deliberately avoids a predictable subject split. Use this page to see ranges and volatility, not to forecast an exact paper.
History and Economy are safer early anchors because their conceptual base repeats. Polity, Environment, Geography, and Current Affairs are also high-return, but their yearly counts swing more.
Yes. Current Affairs appears directly and through other subjects. A question tagged as economy, environment, science, or IR by one source may be tagged as current affairs by another.
No. Art & Culture, IR, and Science & Tech can produce direct, scorable questions. Reduce depth if time is short, but do not skip them completely.
A fixed chart hides UPSC volatility. This page uses min-max ranges, consistency labels, and trend lines so you can plan for uncertainty.
Mains has paper-wise syllabus areas and answer-writing demand. Prelims is a 100-question objective paper where subject labels overlap and current affairs changes the mix.
This page should be refreshed after each UPSC Prelims paper and public answer-key cycle, normally around May-June. The current build is marked with the last updated date on the page.
Use the UPSC syllabus tracker to map YouTube playlists and study sessions to subjects, then review progress by subject instead of treating the whole syllabus as one giant checklist.
UPSC questions are cross-disciplinary. For example, an environment convention question may also be current affairs; a budget question may be economy and governance. We use wider ranges where labels differ.
Use the same data-backed approach for Mains GS papers. Browse recurring themes by GS paper, filter by static vs current affairs, and see exactly which themes appear most frequently.
Use the UPSC syllabus tracker to connect playlists, subject progress, and revision gaps instead of relying on a one-time chart.
Open UPSC tracker