UPSC Prelims Test Series 2027 — Sherlocking Scholars League

The Sherlocking Scholars League is the UnlockIAS UPSC Prelims test series for the 2027 exam. Season 1 runs 100 T-20 matches of 20 questions each, followed by 10 full-length Sherlocking Simulators of 100 questions each. It is built and run by Neil sir, HCS 2021, Rank 93. The league stage opens on 1 September 2026 and the last Simulator lands on 2 May 2027, three weeks before UPSC Prelims 2027 on 23 May 2027.

The league stage opens on 1 September 2026. Matches go live in batches through the season across subjects, so you can start with whatever you are reading right now rather than waiting your turn. Everything is in your hands well before the Simulators begin on 28 February 2027.

There are 110 tests in Season 1: 100 T-20 matches of 20 questions each in the league stage, plus 10 full-length Simulators of 100 questions each. That is 3,000 questions across the season.

A T-20 match is a 20-question paper to be completed in 24 minutes. Each match covers one tight family of topics rather than a scatter across the syllabus: 18 questions across its listed micro-topics, plus 2 current-affairs questions set inside that same subject. A weekly hundred-question mock tests you on any one subject about six times in a year and lets everything in between go cold, so the league cuts the year into small matches you play often instead.

The 10 Sherlocking Simulators run every Sunday from 28 February to 2 May 2027. Each is a full-length 100-question paper on a real clock. Each Simulator mirrors one real UPSC paper’s DNA — its subject spread, its shape mix, its difficulty — so some come out Economy-heavy, some Polity-heavy, some brutal, exactly as the real years did. The tenth lands on 2 May 2027, three weeks before the exam.

It was measured, not designed. 1,600 real UPSC questions from 2011 to 2026 were taken apart one at a time and mapped to 325 micro-topics, each a subject, topic and sub-topic combination UPSC has actually set a question on. How often UPSC asks something decides how much of the season it gets, and that weighting holds all the way down to the individual match. Economy gets 19 matches because Economy is about eighteen percent of the real paper; Modern History gets 7 because it is seven.

Seven analyses land the moment you submit, not just a score and a rank. They cover elimination (including your accuracy with elimination against your accuracy without it, and how often you struck out the correct answer), confidence bands you declare before you are told the answer, accuracy and time quarter by quarter through the paper, and your rank, percentile, peer comparison and a pattern read that builds across the season.

Yes. The All India Sherlocking Scholarship Test (AISST) is free and is the same thing you will be playing all season: 20 questions in 24 minutes, one T-20 exactly as it runs in the league, with instant score, All India rank and full solutions. It can also win you a scholarship — the team reviews your performance and shares a scholarship coupon.

Sherlocking Scholars League Season 1 is ₹5,999 for the full season, against an MRP of ₹9,999. That covers all 110 tests — 100 T-20 matches and 10 full-length Simulators — together with the seven analyses after every match, All India ranking and full solutions, for the whole 2027 Prelims cycle.

UPSC will hold the Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2027 on Sunday, 23 May 2027, and the notification is scheduled for 13 January 2027, per the UPSC annual calendar for 2027. The league is built backwards from that date: the last Simulator is on 2 May 2027, leaving three clear weeks for revision.