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.

Who the exam suits: engineering graduates in Civil, Mechanical, Electrical or Electronics and Telecommunication who want a technical career inside government with command over real projects — roads, buildings, power systems, railway assets, telecom networks and defence works — rather than a corporate or research path. The exam rewards depth in the core subjects of the branch (the same subjects that GATE tests, but with a conventional-paper stage that GATE lacks), plus a General Studies and Engineering Aptitude paper that most GATE aspirants have never prepared. A candidate who can write a clean derivation and a labelled design sketch under time has a structural advantage in the Mains.

How to use this page: the eligibility section states the age, degree and physical-standard conditions as notified; the pattern section gives all three stages with marks, timings and the negative-marking rule for the objective papers; the syllabus lists topics for the General Studies paper and for each of the four disciplines; the preparation section sets out a stage-wise plan; and the dates section tracks the current cycle. Read the marks table first — because the Prelims marks count in the final list, the plan has to protect Stage 1 accuracy while building the answer-writing stamina that Stage 2 demands.