Commerce & Accountancy Optional PYQs – Topic-wise (1995–2026)

Commerce & Accountancy Optional PYQs Topic-wise for UPSC Mains (1995–2026) are listed below unit by unit, in the order of the official syllabus – 1440 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 Commerce & Accountancy Optional year-wise question papers for Paper I and Paper II.

Paper I

Unit	Topic (click to open PYQs)	Sub-topics	Questions	Link
1	Financial Accounting	5	111	Click here →
2	Cost Accounting	7	122	Click here →
3	Taxation	5	96	Click here →
4	Auditing	2	63	Click here →
5	Financial Management	8	253	Click here →
6	Financial Markets and Institutions	6	116	Click here →

Trend: Financial management (unit 5) is by far the heaviest unit, with about a third of Paper I’s marks since 2013 – led by ratio and cash-flow analysis, capital structure and leverage, working capital and capital budgeting. Financial accounting, cost accounting and financial markets and institutions each carry about 14–16%, and taxation about 12%; auditing is the lightest unit at under 8%. In financial accounting, share capital and amalgamation have gained in recent papers while accounting standards have fallen; in taxation, the computation of income under the various heads dominates, at about three-quarters of the unit’s marks in the last five years; in financial markets, financial services (mutual funds, venture capital, credit rating, insurance) lead.

Paper II

Unit	Topic (click to open PYQs)	Sub-topics	Questions	Link
1	Organisation Theory	8	182	Click here →
2	Organisation Behaviour	7	160	Click here →
3	Human Resources Management (HRM)	7	163	Click here →
4	Industrial Relations (IR)	7	174	Click here →

Trend: Paper II is spread almost evenly across its four units, each carrying about a quarter of the marks since 2013. In the last five years industrial relations (unit 4) and organisation theory (unit 1) have gained, while HRM (unit 3) has declined. Within the units, organisational design and structures, personality and perception, industrial disputes and collective bargaining, and HRM planning and recruitment are the most-asked topics.

How this collection is organised

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

1. Units and topics follow the official syllabus. The notification numbers the units afresh within each part of a paper; here they are numbered continuously within each paper – Paper 1: 1 Financial Accounting, 2 Cost Accounting, 3 Taxation, 4 Auditing, 5 Financial Management, 6 Financial Markets and Institutions; Paper 2: 1 Organisation Theory, 2 Organisation Behaviour, 3 Human Resources Management, 4 Industrial Relations. Each unit’s text is divided into topics (for example Paper 1 – 5.3 Capital budgeting). 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, issue and forfeiture of shares and debentures under share capital (1.3); process, contract and service costing under methods of costing (2.2); residential status under income-tax definitions (3.1); GST under VAT and service tax (3.5); industrial sickness and BIFR under corporate restructuring (5.8); development financial institutions under the Indian financial system (6.1); and, in Paper 2, bureaucracy under the evolution of organisation theory, communication and attitudes under personality and perception, and discipline and grievance handling under employee welfare and separations.

3. Some questions cover more than one topic. We’ve kept such questions in each topic of relevance. Questions that fit no topic of their paper’s present syllabus would be kept under “Other Questions (Outside the Present Syllabus)” at the end of the paper; in this subject every question could be placed in a topic.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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 (“answer any three” of four parts, up to 2009), every part is included with its own marks. The available copies of the 1995–2000 papers and of 2001 Paper 2 print no marks; their codes assume the pattern of those papers (60 per question, divided equally between its parts, and 20 for each part of an “any three” question).

7. No copy of the 2008 papers could be found, so that year is not included. The 1995–2007 papers are taken from retyped copies, as no scan of them is available (tables flattened in those copies have been rebuilt from their figures, and 2003 Paper 1 Question 8 is missing from the only copy); all other years are transcribed from scans of the printed papers.

8. The wording and figures of the questions are as printed, including the papers’ own grammar.

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Last updated: 30 October 2026