UPSC ESE/IES (Engineering Services) Free Mock Test

The Engineering Services Examination (ESE), also called the Indian Engineering Services (IES) exam, is the apex recruitment exam for Group A engineering officers in the Government of India. Its lineage goes back to the late 1940s when central engineering cadres were first organised post-Independence; UPSC took over the unified examination in 1976, replacing the earlier service-specific recruitment. ESE feeds officers into a wide set of central engineering services and cadres — including the Central Engineering Service (CPWD), Military Engineer Services (MES), Indian Railway Service of Engineers (IRSE), Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engineers (IRSEE), Indian Railway Service of Signal Engineers (IRSSE), Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers (IRSME), Border Roads Engineering Service (BRES), Indian Defence Service of Engineers (IDSE), Indian Naval Armament Service (INAS), Indian Naval Material Management Service, Central Water Engineering Service (CWES), Central Power Engineering Service (CPES), Indian Telecommunication Service (ITS in DoT/BSNL), Indian Skill Development Service, and AEE posts in P&T Building Works and Wireless Planning. It is the single hardest entry point into central-government engineering officer ranks.

An ESE officer joins as Assistant Executive Engineer (AEE) at Level 10 on the 7th CPC pay matrix (entry pay ₹56,100, gross approximately ₹85,000-1,05,000 per month depending on HRA and posting), with the standard Group A progression — Executive Engineer, Superintending Engineer, Chief Engineer, Additional Director General and Director General — culminating in apex-scale postings. Postings span the entire country and the cadre profile is genuinely operational: a CPWD officer may execute landmark central-government buildings, an MES officer maintains military stations and Border Roads handles strategic highway construction in difficult terrain. Job security, cadre prestige, government accommodation and the technical-leadership nature of the role make ESE the natural target for engineers who want a long, stable, technically-led public-sector career rather than the generalist administrative path.

ESE is a 3-stage selection across 4 engineering disciplines — Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, and Electronics & Telecommunication. Stage 1 (Preliminary) is fully objective and screens candidates through two papers: Paper I — General Studies & Engineering Aptitude (200 marks) and Paper II — discipline-specific objective (300 marks), total 500 marks. Stage 2 (Mains) is conventional / subjective with two discipline papers of 300 marks each, total 600 marks — this is where ESE diverges sharply from GATE and from the CSE prelims-mains pattern. Stage 3 is the Personality Test (interview) for 200 marks. The grand total is 1300 marks, and unusually for a UPSC exam, the Prelims marks ARE counted in the final merit list — so a strong Stage 1 performance directly improves your final rank.

Understand the GATE-vs-ESE divergence on day one. GATE is a 100% objective exam optimised for speed and conceptual recall; ESE is a 3-stage exam where ~46% of the final marks come from conventional Mains where you sit and write derivations, design problems, neat diagrams and SI-unit-perfect numerical solutions for 3 hours. A GATE-only preparation routine will get you through Stage 1 but will collapse at Mains. From the start, parallel-track objective practice (Stage 1) with handwritten conventional practice (Stage 2) — even if the Mains is 6-8 months away.

Build the discipline foundation from the gold-standard textbooks. Civil: Punmia (Surveying, RCC, Soil Mechanics), Khurmi (Strength of Materials, Theory of Structures), B.C. Punmia + Ashok K. Jain (Geotechnical), S.K. Garg (Environmental, Irrigation), Khanna & Justo (Highway Engineering). Mechanical: Shigley + V.B. Bhandari (Machine Design), P.K. Nag (Thermodynamics, Power Plant), R.K. Bansal (Fluid Mechanics), J.P. Holman (Heat Transfer), Sadhu Singh (Theory of Machines). Electrical: Nagrath & Kothari (Electric Machines, Power Systems), B.L. Theraja Vol I-IV, A.K. Sawhney (Measurements), P.S. Bimbhra (Power Electronics), Nagrath & Gopal (Control Systems). Electronics & Telecom: Boylestad & Nashelsky (Electronic Devices), Sanjay Sharma (Communication Systems, DSP), Schilling & Belove (Analog & Digital Electronics), Simon Haykin (Communications), Pozar (Microwave). Pair every textbook with the corresponding Made Easy and IES Master class notes for ESE-pattern condensed revision.

Treat Paper I (GS & Engineering Aptitude) as a separate, equal subject — not a leftover. It carries 200 marks and counts in the final merit. The Engineering Aptitude portion (logical reasoning, mathematical reasoning, dimensional analysis) is high-scoring and stable; the General Studies portion (current affairs, schemes, environment, energy, ethics, ICT, project management) needs a dedicated monthly current-affairs source plus a static reader on environment, ethics and project management fundamentals. Made Easy / IES Master both publish ESE-specific Paper I books — pick one and stick with it.

Make conventional-paper writing a daily routine starting at least 6 months before Mains. The 60-mark question is the single most decisive unit of ESE — a typical paper has 5-6 such questions and you need to attempt at least 4 fully. Each 60-mark question legitimately takes 50-60 minutes including diagrams, derivations and a final boxed answer with units. Set a timer, sit on a desk with A4 sheets and a clipboard, draw with a scale, label every axis, write SI units after every numerical answer. Submit at least 2 full Mains-pattern papers per week for self-evaluation in the last 3 months — and ideally get them evaluated by a senior or coaching faculty for handwriting, presentation and step-marking feedback.

Build a personal formula sheet and a one-page-per-chapter revision sheet for the entire discipline syllabus by month 4 of preparation. ESE Paper II covers 10-12 subjects in the discipline — without a condensed revision document, the last 2 months become impossible. The sheet should have the key formulas, standard IS codes (e.g., IS 800:2007, IS 456:2000, IS 1893 for Civil; IS 732 for Electrical), the limiting values, the differentiating factors between similar concepts (e.g., Otto vs Diesel cycle, BJT vs MOSFET, single-phase vs three-phase fault) and the standard data you'll need in numerical problems.

Solve previous-year ESE papers — both objective (Stage 1) and conventional (Stage 2) — for at least the last 10 years, per discipline. ESE has strong topic-recurrence: certain Civil questions on Mohr's circle, RCC singly-reinforced beam design, retaining wall stability, Terzaghi's bearing capacity; certain Mechanical questions on heat exchanger LMTD, Otto-cycle efficiency, design of cotter joint; certain Electrical questions on three-phase fault analysis, induction motor torque-slip, transformer regulation; certain E&T questions on Smith chart impedance matching, BJT biasing, FM modulation index — these recur with surprising frequency. PYQ analysis tells you which sub-topics carry 70% of marks and where to stop spending time.

Use the right mock-test rhythm. Stage 1 mocks: 2-3 per week in the last 8 weeks (one Paper I, one Paper II, optionally one full Stage 1 combined). Stage 2 conventional mocks: 1-2 per week from month 4, increasing to 2-3 per week in the final 6 weeks before Mains. Kamiyab's Quick Practice mode is built for daily topic-level objective drilling; Full Mock mode replicates the ESE Stage 1 timer, negative-marking and section weights. For Mains, you'll need pen-on-paper handwritten mocks — there is no digital substitute.

Prepare the Personality Test from the day you fill the DAF. The 200-mark interview heavily depends on the Detailed Application Form: education, hobbies, work experience, home state, district and your discipline. The board will pick from these. Build a written interview file covering — discipline depth (top 30 viva-style questions), current engineering affairs (major infrastructure projects, Make-in-India, PLI scheme, recent budget allocations to MoRTH/Railways/Power/Telecom), ethics & values cases, leadership and decision-making scenarios, your home-state's key engineering projects, and recent news in your discipline (e.g., 5G/6G for E&T, Vande Bharat & Kavach for Mech/Elec, NHAI/Bharatmala for Civil).

Manage health and stamina deliberately. ESE is a 14-18 month process from notification to final list. Mains in particular is a physical endurance test — two 3-hour conventional papers can leave your hand cramping. Build writing stamina by writing 3-hour mocks weekly for the final 3 months. Sleep, fixed study hours and a sustainable schedule beat heroic week-long sprints. Burnout in month 9 of an 18-month process is the most common reason candidates underperform on the actual exam day.