IES Exam (Electrical) Pattern, Syllabus, Papers & Books

UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) has just recently brought out the IES exam 2012 notification, details about which can be found in my previous blog post titled: UPSC IES exam 2012 Notification, Eligibility & Forms. That post tells you about the notification, what are the eligibilities for IES exam as well as where to find those forms.

The purpose of this blog post is to help those Electrical Engineers who would appear in this IES exam, with study materials for the IES exam - Pattern, Syllabus, Papers & Books.

Although this blog post is made for IES-2012 exam, aspirants of even the future IES exam would find the contents useful – the materials - Pattern, Syllabus, Sample papers & Books can also be used as study materials for IES exam 2013, IES exam2014 as well as future IES exams as a major change is very less likely to happen.

IES Exam Pattern for Electrical Engineers:

IES exam consists of a total 1200 mark selection process, which consists of a written test for 1000 marks and a 200 mark Interview for those shortlisted. Out of the total 1000 marks in the written test, 600 marks are for Objective test and 400 marks for Conventional test.
Plan of IES written test along with mark distribution paper-wise is given below:
IES Objective Test Papers: 600 marks
General Ability Test: 2 hrs duration: 200 marks
Electrical Engineering Paper I: 2 hrs duration: 200 marks
Electrical Engineering Paper II: 2 hrs duration: 200 marks
General Ability Test consists of: Part A: General English & Part B: General Studies.
There are 120 questions in each of the above three papers – thus you have one minute for each question of average worth 1.67 marks.

Objective type test consists of multiple-choice questions with four options, in which you have to choose the correct option and mark the same in the answer booklet with an HB pencil, by darkening the circle (representing the correct option) completely. The answer booklet is an OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) sheet, which looks like the one below:

Negative marking:
Beware - for each wrong answer of a question, one third (0.33) of the marks assigned to that question will be deducted as penalty. Hence encircle the correct answer properly and also make wise-guesses!

IES Conventional Test Papers: 400 marks
Electrical Engineering Paper I: 3 hrs duration: 200 marks
Electrical Engineering Paper II: 3 hrs duration: 200 marks
These papers consists of descriptive (i.e. essay) type questions.
Depending on the relative performance by the IES candidates, UPSC decides the cut-off (minimum qualifying marks) in the Objective test and the papers of Conventional test is evaluated only for those above this cut-off. IES exam cut-off in the Objective test is approximately 60%.

IES Exam Syllabus for Electrical Engineers:
Kindly go through the blog article IES Exam Syllabus for Electrical Engineers, posted specifically for this purpose.

IES Exam Sample Papers for Electrical Engineers:

So you are searching for those free online sample papers for IES exam? I would not disappoint you. I searched on the net for IES exam previous years papers for you and could locate following papers:

Download free IES exam sample papers from UPSC website:
Following papers in pdf format are the actual IES exam previous years papers and hence gives you the look and feel of the actual exam:
Click here to download IES exam General Ability Test paper

Click here to download IES exam Electrical Engineering (Objective) Paper I
Click here to download IES exam Electrical Engineering (Objective) Paper II

Click here to download IES exam Electrical Engineering (Conventional) Paper I
Click here to download IES exam Electrical Engineering (Conventional) Paper II

Another good website that I recommend for the IES sample paper is ParikshaGuru. It has some good collection of IES sample papers in PDF format. However, you would need to register and update your profile to download these papers.

IES Exam Books for Electrical Engineers:

Above online sample papers for IES exams should be used so as to know the type of question asked in IES exams. Your real preparation should be based on books - your own graduation text/reference books as well as the guide books available.

I found following books good for preparation of IES exam, which has been categorized according to exam sections. These books are available in most of the bookstores, but you can also order them online by clicking the links below from Flipkart.com, which offers huge discounts up to 25%, apart from free shipping/postage in India, if the order exceeds Rs.200. You can choose to pay through Credit Card/Debit Card/Internet Banking. You can also choose to pay through “Cash-on-Delivery” i.e. you pay in cash only when the same is delivered at your doorstep:

Prep book for IES General Ability Test (200 marks):

1. I.E.S. General Ability (Topic Wise Solved Papers) by G K Publishers.
List Price: Rs.195; Offer Price: Rs.167; Discount: Rs. 28 (14%).

2. Chapter-wise Solved PapersIES English & General Ability by Priyanka Ahuja, Chauhan Publisher: Arihant
List Price: Rs.125; Offer Price: Rs.116; Discount: Rs.9 (7%).

Prep Book for IES Exam (Electrical) Objective Test Papers (400 marks):