Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science Optional PYQs – Topic-wise (1995–2026)

Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science Optional PYQs Topic-wise for UPSC Mains (1995–2026) are listed below unit by unit, in the order of the official syllabus – 1427 questions in all. Click any unit to open all its previous year questions, arranged topic-wise with the latest first.

Want full papers instead? Open the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science Optional year-wise question papers for Paper I and Paper II.

Paper I

Unit	Topic (click to open PYQs)	Sub-topics	Questions	Link
1	Animal Nutrition	13	208	Click here →
2	Animal Physiology	11	141	Click here →
3	Animal Reproduction	5	75	Click here →
4	Livestock Production and Management	6	124	Click here →
5	Genetics and Animal Breeding	10	174	Click here →
6	Extension	4	37	Click here →

Trend: Animal nutrition is the heaviest unit (about 26% of the marks since 2013 and 29% in 2022–2026), followed by genetics and animal breeding (about 22%) and animal physiology (about 21%); livestock production and management takes about 15%, reproduction about 9% and extension about 6%. In the last five years physiology has risen to about a quarter of the paper while genetics and breeding has fallen to about 15%. The most frequent topics since 2013 are feeding of cattle and buffaloes (1.10), protein and energy nutrition (1.2, 1.1), poultry nutrition (1.13), blood and circulation (2.1, 2.2), semen quality (3.1), population genetics (5.4) and selection (5.9).

Paper II

Unit	Topic (click to open PYQs)	Sub-topics	Questions	Link
1	Anatomy, Pharmacology and Hygiene	11	172	Click here →
2	Animal Diseases	10	176	Click here →
3	Veterinary Public Health	4	97	Click here →
4	Milk and Milk Products Technology	7	83	Click here →
5	Meat Hygiene and Technology	8	140	Click here →

Trend: Animal diseases (about 26% since 2013) and anatomy, pharmacology and hygiene (about 25%) carry the most marks, followed by meat hygiene and technology (about 22%, rising to 24% in 2022–2026), milk and milk products technology (about 14%) and veterinary public health (about 12%). Bovine anatomy (1.4), veterinary hygiene (1.10), general pharmacology (1.6), immunisation and disease control (2.9), zoonoses and veterinary jurisprudence (3.1, 3.4), milk products (4.5) and meat technology (5.4) are the most frequent topics; in 2022–2026 veterinary surgery and anaesthesia (2.10), disease investigation (2.11) and cultured milks (4.3) have come up more often.

More questions

Other questions (outside the present syllabus) – 31 questions

How this collection is organised

Considering the changing exam pattern over the years, we felt it necessary to declare some practices we’ve adopted in this collection.

1. Units follow the official syllabus – Paper 1: 1 Animal Nutrition, 2 Animal Physiology, 3 Animal Reproduction, 4 Livestock Production and Management, 5 Genetics and Animal Breeding, 6 Extension; Paper 2: 1 Anatomy, Pharmacology and Hygiene, 2 Animal Diseases, 3 Veterinary Public Health, 4 Milk and Milk Products Technology, 5 Meat Hygiene and Technology. Because the notification’s sub-heads are broad, each unit is divided here into finer topics (for example Paper 2 – 2.9 Immunisation and disease control); these topic numbers differ from the notification’s sub-head numbers. Where a unit has many questions, they are further divided by these topics.

2. Questions on areas the syllabus does not name separately are placed under the nearest topic: for example, embryo transfer and other reproductive biotechnologies under artificial insemination (Paper 1 – 3.3), oestrus synchronisation under oestrus detection (3.4), rumen fermentation under ruminant nutrition (1.9), immunology under immunisation and disease control (Paper 2 – 2.9), and clinical poisoning under non-specific conditions (2.7).

3. Every question is kept in its own paper. Older papers sometimes set a question on a subject of the other paper (for example extension or physiology in Paper 2, or dairy technology in Paper 1); such questions are placed under the nearest topic of their own paper, or under “Outside the present syllabus” when no topic of that paper fits.

4. Some questions cover more than one topic. We’ve kept such questions in each topic of relevance.

5. Graphs at the start of each paper show the weightage of every unit in that paper, and graphs for each unit show the weightage of its topics. Weightage is the share of marks asked from a unit or topic, compared for 2013–2026 (white bars) and the last five years, 2022–2026 (black bars). A question placed under two topics has its marks split equally between them.

6. Each of the topicwise question is suffixed by a question code like this [2024/20m/2a]. This code indicates a) year in which the question was asked, b) maximum marks the question carried, c) prescribed word limit (where UPSC set one, e.g. 150w) and, d) the question number in actual paper, in given order.

7. Until 2012, each paper carried 300 marks (60 per question); since 2013 each paper carries 250 marks (50 per question). Where a question offered more parts than were to be answered (“any three” of four, or “any five” of six), every part is included with its own marks. For 1995–2000 no marks are printed in any available copy; the codes assume 60 per question and 20 per part of the “any three” short-note questions, following the pattern of the 2001–2007 papers.

8. 2016–2026 papers are transcribed from the official UPSC question papers, 2009–2015 from scans of the printed papers and 1995–2007 from published typed copies compared with each other. No copy of the 2008 papers could be found, so that year is not included.

9. The wording of the questions is as printed, including the papers’ own grammar and apparent misprints; obvious typing slips in the typed copies of older papers have been corrected.

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Last updated: 31 October 2026