ISS26

The National Statistical Office runs the surveys that measure Indian life: the Periodic Labour Force Survey for employment, the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey for spending, the Annual Survey of Industries for the factory sector, and the Time Use Survey for how Indians spend their day. Real ISS boards have asked about every one of these, … Read more

An Indian Statistical Service officer designs and runs the surveys that measure India, builds the national accounts that produce GDP, compiles the price indices that track inflation, and serves as the statistical backbone of ministries across the Government of India. The service was constituted in 1961, and its cadre controlling authority is the Ministry of … Read more

Ten questions appear again and again across four years of UPSC ISS interview transcripts, from the opening introduction to the closing courtesy. If you can answer these ten honestly and calmly, you walk into Dholpur House already prepared for the spine of your interview. Day 7 closes Week 1 of our series. All week we … Read more

Hobbies are the most heavily probed personal field in the UPSC ISS interview. In the transcripts of recommended candidates, a candidate who listed cricket was asked which match holds the highest recorded live viewership, and a candidate who listed jogging was asked how to measure pulse rate without any device. The pattern is consistent: three … Read more

Your home address is one of the most heavily used fields in the UPSC ISS interview. Real boards have asked candidates to name something unique about their district, to explain why its sex ratio is high, and to answer history questions about their home town, starting from who founded it. The logic behind this pattern … Read more

Education questions in the UPSC ISS interview follow a clear pattern: your subject choice, your institutions, your specialisation, and any gaps or swings the form reveals. Real boards have asked candidates who founded their university, why the town of their college is famous, and what they have been doing in the years since their degree. … Read more

Most questions in the UPSC ISS interview come from one document: the Detailed Application Form, the online application you verified and finally submitted on the UPSC portal after the written result. Across four years of transcripts of recommended candidates, the chairperson’s opening questions, and often half the interview, trace directly to fields of this form. … Read more

The UPSC ISS interview is held at the Union Public Service Commission office at Dholpur House, Shahjahan Road, New Delhi. The day runs in a fixed sequence: reporting in your session, security checks, deposit of belongings, document verification with a briefing, the waiting hall, and finally the board room for a conversation of 20 to … Read more

The UPSC ISS interview, officially called the Personality Test, carries 200 marks out of the total 1200 marks of the Indian Statistical Service Examination. It usually lasts 20 to 30 minutes before a board of a chairperson and three to four members. Among recommended candidates of the last four available cycles, interview scores ranged roughly … Read more