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Essay

UPSC Essay — Previous Year Questions

Every question from Essay papers in UPSC Civil Services Mains (2021–2026), organised by year. 48 questions in total, each with directive-word analysis, model answer points, and a full evaluation rubric.

48Questions
6Years covered

2026 Mains

8 questions · 1000 marks

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Essay Paper 8 Qs · 1000 marks
All 8 questions from 2026

Essay Paper

  1. Q1 Oxymorons reflect the ironies of life. 125 marks
  2. Q2 A grateful mind is very beautiful. 125 marks
  3. Q3 A thorn is a changed bud. 125 marks
  4. Q4 When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled. 125 marks
  5. Q5 Nature is the symbol of the spirit. 125 marks
  6. Q6 A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers. 125 marks
  7. Q7 Shelving hard decisions is the least ethical course. 125 marks
  8. Q8 A good leader is one who follows the followers. 125 marks

2025 Mains

8 questions · 1000 marks

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Essay Paper 8 Qs · 1000 marks
All 8 questions from 2025

Essay Paper

  1. Q1 Truth knows no color. 125 marks
  2. Q2 The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. 125 marks
  3. Q3 Thought finds a world and creates one also. 125 marks
  4. Q4 Best lessons are learnt through bitter experiences. 125 marks
  5. Q5 Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone. 125 marks
  6. Q6 The years teach much which the days never know. 125 marks
  7. Q7 It is best to see life as a journey, not as a destination. 125 marks
  8. Q8 Contentment is natural wealth; luxury is artificial poverty. 125 marks

2024 Mains

8 questions · 1000 marks

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Essay Paper 8 Qs · 1000 marks
All 8 questions from 2024

Essay Paper

  1. Q1 Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow them. 125 marks
  2. Q2 The empires of the future will be the empires of the mind. 125 marks
  3. Q3 There is no path to happiness; Happiness is the path. 125 marks
  4. Q4 The doubter is a true man of science. 125 marks
  5. Q5 Social media is triggering 'Fear of Missing Out' amongst the youth, precipitating depression and loneliness. 125 marks
  6. Q6 Nearly all men can stand adversity, but to test the character, give him power. 125 marks
  7. Q7 All ideas having large consequences are always simple. 125 marks
  8. Q8 The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing. 125 marks

2023 Mains

8 questions · 1000 marks

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Essay Paper 8 Qs · 1000 marks
All 8 questions from 2023

Essay Paper

  1. Q1 Thinking is like a game, it does not begin unless there is an opposite team. 125 marks
  2. Q2 Visionary decision-making happens at the intersection of intuition and logic. 125 marks
  3. Q3 Not all who wander are lost. 125 marks
  4. Q4 Inspiration for creativity springs from the effort to look for the magical in the mundane. 125 marks
  5. Q5 Girls are weighed down by restrictions, boys with demands — two equally harmful disciplines. 125 marks
  6. Q6 Mathematics is the music of reason. 125 marks
  7. Q7 A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity. 125 marks
  8. Q8 Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. 125 marks

2022 Mains

8 questions · 1000 marks

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Essay Paper 8 Qs · 1000 marks
All 8 questions from 2022

Essay Paper

  1. Q1 Forests are the best case studies for economic excellence 125 marks
  2. Q2 Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world 125 marks
  3. Q3 History is a series of victories won by the scientific man over the romantic man 125 marks
  4. Q4 A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ship is for 125 marks
  5. Q5 The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining 125 marks
  6. Q6 You cannot step twice in the same river 125 marks
  7. Q7 A smile is the chosen vehicle for all ambiguities 125 marks
  8. Q8 Just because you have a choice, it does not mean that any of them has to be right 125 marks

2021 Mains

8 questions · 1000 marks

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Essay Paper 8 Qs · 1000 marks
All 8 questions from 2021

Essay Paper

  1. Q1 The process of self-discovery has now been technologically outsourced. 125 marks
  2. Q2 Your perception of me is a reflection of you; my reaction to you is an awareness of me. 125 marks
  3. Q3 Philosophy of wantlessness is Utopian, while materialism is a chimera. 125 marks
  4. Q4 The real is rational and the rational is real. 125 marks
  5. Q5 Hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. 125 marks
  6. Q6 What is research, but a blind date with knowledge ! 125 marks
  7. Q7 History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce. 125 marks
  8. Q8 There are better practices to "best practices". 125 marks

How Essay answers are marked

The shape the examiner expects, what earns the marks and the traps that lose them: the same card our rubrics for this subject are written from.

Answer skeleton

  1. Decode the quote
  2. State the thesis
  3. Five or six balanced sections
  4. Return to the quote

What earns the marks

  • Spend fifteen to twenty minutes planning first
  • Default: meaning, limitation, stand
  • Disagree with it: for, against, balanced view
  • Vague words: define, separate look-alikes, stand
  • Poetic quote: confusion, metaphor unpacked, settled view
  • Return to the quote in every section

What earns the extra mark

  • Examples across personal, social, governance, global

Traps that cost marks

  • Writing before decoding
  • Motivational sermon
  • Ignoring the against side
The full answer-writing guide →

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