30 May UPSC Prelims 2025 Expected Cut Off
Conducted on Sunday, 25th May 2025, the Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2025 by the Union Public Service Commission has now ended. In this article, we are going into much detail on past trends, factors affecting the cutoffs, expert analysis, and the expected UPSC Prelims 2025 cutoffs. Lakhs of aspirants scattered throughout the country are impatiently awaiting the announcement of the results, with cutoffs lying nearest to their minds.
The UPSC Prelims cutoff marks are what decide whether a candidate is eligible for the next vital step—the Main Examination. Searching for that; however, the Prelims itself is only a screening test and a necessary passageway to the country’s most prestigious administrative services.
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Why Prelims Cutoff Matters?
Though the UPSC Prelims only qualify as the first stage in the examination process, the cutoff becomes important since it:
- Determine whether you have been cleared to proceed to the Mains stage.
- Serves as a check for deciding the initiation of the Mains preparation.
- Gives future aspirants a clue about benchmarks on performance.
- Gives an idea of the changing attitude of UPSC in pattern and more.
Most importantly, only the marks scored in the General Studies Paper I are taken into consideration while determining the cutoff. Paper II (CSAT) remains qualifying in nature, wherein the candidate needs to score a minimum of 33% marks, i.e., 66.67 out of 200, in order to qualify.
A Look Into the Last 2 Years’ Cutoffs
Let’s take a look at how the cutoffs have varied over the last couple of years. This helps set a living standard for what may transpire during 2025.
Year 2023 UPSC Prelims Cutoff:
- General Category – 75.41 marks
- EWS – 68.02 marks
- OBC – 74.75 marks
- SC – 47.82 marks
- ST – 59.25 marks
- PwBD-1 – 40.40 marks
- PwBD-2 – 41.73 marks
Cutoffs in 2023 were a slight dip due to the especially tough nature of General Studies Paper I and CSAT Paper.
Year 2024 UPSC Prelims Cutoff:
- General Category – 87.98 marks
- EWS – 85.92 marks
- OBC – 87.28 marks
- SC – 79.03 marks
- ST – 74.23 marks
- PwBD-1 – 69.42 marks
- PwBD-2 – 65.30 marks
Sharp upward changes were seen in the 2024 cutoffs, with the General category cutoff seeing an increase of more than 12, unlike its figure in 2023. Most of the reserved categories exhibited almost the same trend as well.
Expected UPSC Prelims 2025 Cutoff
The cutoff 2025 is expected to be near the 2024 level as per trends observed in early reviews by experts, coaching institutes, and feedback from students, though some divergence can occur if the papers vary in difficulty or the vacancies differ.
Expected Cutoff for 2025 (Unofficial Prediction)-
- General – Cat- 85 to 90 marks
- EWS – 83 to 88 marks
- OBC – 84 to 89 marks
- SC – 75 to 80 marks
- ST – 70 to 75 marks
- PwBD-1 – 65 to 70 marks
- PwBD-2 – 63 to 68 marks
Please bear in mind that these are merely suggested cutoffs; hence, only UPSC will announce the final cutoffs after the final result of the Civil Services Examination has been declared.
Factors That Influence UPSC Prelims Cutoff
1. Difficulty Level of the Paper
Highly analytical or tricky questions take a beating on the score average of GS paper I, resulting in a drop in the cutoff marks. Similarly, with a tough CSAT paper that mainly targets comprehension and logical reasoning, many candidates get disqualified and thus greatly reducing the number of candidates that reach the cutoff zone.
This pattern was evident in 2023 when difficult GS and CSAT papers caused the cutoffs to plummet. For a relatively balanced set of papers in 2024, however, the cutoffs soared.
The initial intimation for 2025 suggests that GS Paper I was of moderate-to-slightly difficult level, while CSAT again posed a serious challenge, mostly for those not fluent in reasoning heavy on comprehension.
2. Number of Vacancies
The number of vacancies released by UPSC has a direct impact on the cutoffs:
In 2024, the number of vacancies was 1,056.
In 2025, the number of vacancies fell to 979.
As vacancies decrease, competition gets aggravated and hence might push the cutoffs up, especially when the paper is on the easier side and many aspirants can do well on it.
3. Number of Serious Candidates
While there are over 10 lakh applications every year, about 5-6 lakh turn up for it. An increasing number among them take coaching and appear for multiple mocks and analyse the pre-question years (PYQs), thus raising the bar for the average performance and hence the cutoff.
4. A Violation in Subject Weightage or Pattern
There are many situations where UPSC changes the subject focus or merges current affairs with the traditional subjects, making questions more conceptual. In 2025, Environment, Polity, and Current Affairs topics took the lion’s share in the paper, while the conventional subjects History and Art & Culture saw slightly fewer questions. This could also have led to fluctuations in individual performances, eventually affecting the overall cutoff.
CSAT – The Hidden Filter
CSAT is only qualifying, yet it decides whether a candidate may or may not qualify for the Mains. An unusually high number of candidates do not clear CSAT, even after good GS Paper I marks. In 2025, experts said CSAT was harder than the previous year, with difficulty concentrating on reading comprehension and logical reasoning. Hence, there is some fear among aspirants that they might be disqualified even after fair marks in GS Paper I. Therefore, even with a 90+ in GS, crossing the threshold mark of 66.67 in CSAT becomes essential to be ranked on the merit list.
What Should Aspirants Do Now?
You should approach your preparation based on your score estimate:
- If The Score Is 85 or Above
Then you are in the safe zone. While waiting for results, don’t waste time- do your Mains preparation straight away, which deals mainly with GS Papers II-V, Essay writing, plus Optional. - If The Score Is Between 75 and 84
Then the marks are close to the cutoff. Begin light preparations for Mains while observing the analyses of answer keys by coaching institutes, and also your CSAT performance. Preparation for a second attempt would also be wise. - If The Score Is Lower Than 75
You may fail to make it to the cutoff. Take this as an opportunity to analyse your failings, chiefly in CSAT. Set a long-term plan, glancing towards UPSC 2026, and begin fresh preparation.
Conclusion
The expected cutoff of Preliminary 2025 of UPSC is assessed to be in the range of 85-90 marks for the General category, with proportionately lower cutoffs for other categories. Though these cutoff scores aren’t official ones, they are arrived at based on expert analysis, previous year trends, and feedback from aspirants. A candidate who scores near or above this range should, without wasting time, commence Mains preparation. For success in UPSC, one needs to be consistent with efforts, maintain resilience, practice strategies on real feedback, and be disciplined in preparation. In or out, every experience in this entire journey will add to your growth. Let it guide your next step.
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