IFoS Previous Year Papers — General English & GK

UPSC publishes the official IFoS Mains question papers as free PDFs on upsc.gov.in. The Previous Question Papers page carries the last three years (2023–2025), and papers from 2016 to 2022 are in its Archives section. This page indexes the direct official links for General English and General Knowledge, year by year. Papers older than 2016 are not hosted on upsc.gov.in.

UPSC publishes only the question papers, never model answers or evaluated scripts. Solved compilations are scarce — one print option is Ramesh Publishing House's solved previous-years volume for Paper I and Paper II. The Sherlocking IFoS modules take a different approach: every previous year question from 2013 to 2025 is discussed in the lectures, and the GK module includes full model answers for the 2019–2023 papers, written within the exam word limits.

The 2025 paper (300 marks, all questions compulsory) asked: an 800–1,000-word essay from a choice of four topics (one was "Wildlife preservation and the development drive"), an expansion of the proverb "Grey hair is a sign of age, not of wisdom" (~200 words), a newspaper report on young Indian chess grandmasters, a précis of a 498-word passage in about 165 words, a five-question reading comprehension, and a six-part grammar-and-usage question including confusable pairs like accede/exceed.

The 2025 GK paper had 6 questions × 4 compulsory parts (24 answers, no choice). It ranged from Vedic philosophy and sustainable forest management, the Gandhara school of art and revolutionary nationalists, through Centre-State finances and the 16th Finance Commission, President's rule and the Governor's "pocket veto", urban heat islands and river interlinking, to quantum computing, energy storage and nanotechnology — including a current-events question on the August 2025 Dharali (Uttarkashi) flash floods.

At minimum the last five years, because the pattern has been stable: the same five-question English structure and the same 6×4 GK structure appeared in both 2024 and 2025. The Sherlocking IFoS modules discuss every question from 2013 to 2025 — thirteen years — because repeated demand areas (précis discipline, rewrite-as-directed forms, forestry-linked GK themes) only become visible across a longer window.

Question types repeat far more than questions. In English, the essay/letter/report/précis/comprehension/grammar frame recurs every year, with grammar testing the same families (word forms, idioms, confusable pairs, rewrite-as-directed). In GK, themes recur — forestry and environment angles, polity of the moment, science in everyday life — which is why PYQ mapping against the syllabus is the highest-yield preparation exercise.