What DAF-II is, and how it differs from DAF-I
DAF-II is the name candidates and coaching institutes use for the form a Civil Services candidate completes after qualifying the Mains, before the Personality Test; DAF-I is their name for the form completed after the prelims result, before the Mains. The UPSC CSE 2026 notification, which we read on upsc.gov.in on 21 October 2026, uses neither name. It describes one online Application Form, built from your Universal Registration Number profile, a Common Application Form and an Exam Specific Form, and two update windows. After the prelims result there is a 10-day window in which every candidate who qualifies for the Mains must log in, update or reconfirm the details and submit, which is what generates the e-Admit Card. After the Mains result there is a 15-day window in which every candidate who qualifies for the Personality Test must fill or update the listed fields and submit again, which is what generates the e-Summon letter. Your optional subject, Mains medium, compulsory Indian language and Mains centre are fixed in the Exam Specific Form when you apply, and your service preferences are given in the Application Form. The board does not see separate forms. Per the notification, the Board interviewing you has "a record of the candidate's career" before it, and that record is everything you have filled in, read as one document. Everything below follows from that sentence: the form is the only syllabus the Personality Test has.
| DAF-I (the post-prelims window) | DAF-II (the post-Mains window) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who fills it | Candidates who qualify the prelims for the Mains | Candidates who qualify the Mains and are called for the Personality Test |
| When | A 10-day window after the prelims result, per the 2026 notification | A 15-day window after the Mains result, per the 2026 notification (dates not yet announced for CSE 2026; see below) |
| What you do | Update or reconfirm the details already in your Application Form and submit it. The optional, the medium, the compulsory language and the centre were fixed earlier in the Exam Specific Form and cannot be changed | Must: your educational qualification status, with proof of passing uploaded. Where applicable: address, higher qualification, achievements in different fields, employment or service experience, any service allocated in an earlier CSE, marital status, parental details, attempts, the OBC or EWS annexure and a socio-economic questionnaire |
| What the board mines | Almost everything: place, education, optional, work, hobbies | New achievements and employment, the service and cadre order, and any gap between what you wrote then and what you write now |
| Where | upsconline.nic.in, the portal the 2026 notification names. It is a login portal, so we cannot read the screens inside it. The older upsconline.gov.in, read on 21 October 2026, says it now only previews application forms filed on or before 25 March 2025 | |
A caution on sources. The notification sets out what must be filled and when, not how each screen looks, and the screens sit behind the candidate login. When your window opens, read its instruction page in full before you fill anything; the fields the Commission allows you to edit can differ from one year to the next. Candidates and the press still say DAF-I and DAF-II, and so does this page, because that is what you will search for.
When DAF-II is filled, and what comes after
For CSE 2026 the Mains result, the DAF-II window and the Personality Test schedule are all not announced as of 21 October 2026. The UPSC What's New feed and the Interview Schedules page list boards for other examinations only. Two facts frame the timing. Per the CSE 2026 notification, the DAF-II window lasts 15 days from the declaration of the Mains result. And last cycle the Personality Test ran from 8 December to 27 February, starting about two weeks after the Mains result, so the window and the first boards run close together. Two weeks is the whole gap between learning you are through and the first boards sitting, which is why the drill at the end of this page is built for fourteen days.
| Step | Where | Timing (last cycle's pattern; CSE 2026 not announced) |
|---|---|---|
| Mains result published | upsc.gov.in What's New | Late November last cycle (reported) |
| DAF-II window opens and closes | upsconline.nic.in | 15 days from the Mains result, per the 2026 notification |
| Interview schedule published | Interview Schedules page | Published with dates, forenoon or afternoon session and roll-number blocks |
| e-Summon letter available | upsconline.nic.in, the portal the 2026 notification names | Generated when you submit the DAF-II form, per the notification; download it before your board date |
| Personality Test | UPSC, Dholpur House, New Delhi | 8 December to 27 February last cycle |
If you are preparing a year early for CSE 2027, the prelims notification is due on 13 January 2027 with applications closing on 2 February 2027 and the prelims on 23 May 2027, per the UPSC 2027 calendar. The DAF you fill then is the one a board will read in the winter of 2027 to 2028, so the advice in this page applies from the day you first type your hobbies into a form.
The fields boards mine, in the order they read them
Boards read the DAF top to bottom, and the chair's opening question usually comes from the first half-page: your name, your place, your education or your job. The members then pick fields that match their own interests, which is why a board with an academic on it goes to your optional and a board with a retired secretary goes to your work and your service preference. The table lists each field, the kind of question it generates and roughly how many questions in a thirty-minute board it produces in the accounts we have read. The last column is our judgement, not a UPSC figure.
| DAF field | What the board does with it | Typical weight |
|---|---|---|
| Name and surname | Meaning, origin, a namesake, the community it signals | An opener, one or two questions |
| Date and place of birth | Events of your birth year, why birthplace and home district differ | One, occasionally |
| Home district and state | Geography, economy, one problem, one scheme, politics, border or migration | Four to six, the largest single block |
| Mother tongue and medium | Language policy, why you switched medium, Eighth Schedule | One or two |
| School and board | Government or private, a teacher, what you would change | One, often skipped |
| Graduation, college, marks | Why this subject, apply it, low marks, the college, gap years | Three to five |
| Higher degrees | Why an unused master's, research versus service | One |
| Employment | What the company does, a failure, a conflict, why leave, your industry on trial | Three to five if you have worked |
| Optional subject | Why this one, a thinker, a criticism, apply it to a live problem | Two to four |
| Hobbies and interests | Depth: the last book, the hardest dish, perform a line, the numbers | Two to four, with the sharpest follow-ups |
| Prizes, medals, positions held | What you did to win it, what you failed to deliver as a leader | One or two |
| NCC, NSS, sport | What it taught you that a classroom did not | One |
| Service preference (given when you apply) | Why this order, what one service can do that another cannot, a low-placed service | Two or three |
| Home cadre preference (IAS or IPS, when the Commission asks) | Why home state, why not the North-East, acting against people you know | One or two |
| Medium of interview | Why Hindi after an English Mains, or the reverse | One, early |
Add the weights and you reach twenty-five to forty questions, more than a board usually has time for. In other words, a well-prepared candidate should be able to predict most of their interview from the form, and a board that cannot find enough in the form will go to current affairs, where you have less control. The best DAF is one that gives the board five things worth asking about.
Sixty DAF-derived questions, field by field
Thirty-eight of these are in our question bank, each with the board's pushback, a model answer written by TalkDrill and the quality being judged; the bank id is given in brackets. The other twenty-two are stated here with a one-line note on what the board is after. Replace every bracket with your own DAF before you rehearse.
Name, date and place of birth (7)
- What does your name mean, and who chose it? Opener; the board wants a relaxed, specific answer, not a speech.
- There is a well-known person with your name. What do you make of them? Alertness and tact; praise or criticism should both be measured.
- Your surname tells us your community. Should officers drop surnames? Balance; a question about caste in disguise.
- You were born in [city] but your home district is [district]. Why? Fact, then a line on what the move did to your family.
- What was happening in India in the year you were born? Two events you can discuss, not a list.
- What is your birthplace known for today? One line; the board is checking curiosity about places you passed through.
- Tell us about your district. (q01)
Home district, state and mother tongue (9)
- What is your state known for, and wrongly known for? (q02)
- Your state has coal, iron and forests. Why are its people poor? (q03)
- Name one scheme from your state the Union should copy. (q04)
- Your district borders Nepal. How does that shape administration? (q05)
- Does caste still decide elections in your district? (q06)
- Why do so many people from your region migrate for work? (q07)
- Should your mother tongue be in the Eighth Schedule? (q08)
- You studied in Hindi medium and chose English for the board. Why? Honesty; "because the board prefers it" has no basis in the notification and reads as insecurity.
- Which language do you dream in, and does it matter for an officer? A light question with a serious edge: will you learn the cadre's language.
School, graduation and higher education (11)
- Government school or private? What would you change in the one you attended? One concrete change, with the constraint that stopped it.
- Name a teacher who shaped you and say how. A specific habit, not gratitude in general.
- You studied under the [state] board. Does the board a child studies under matter? Balance; boards differ in rigour and the candidate should know how.
- Why civil services after engineering? (q09)
- One lesson from your subject that an administrator must remember. (q10)
- Your graduation marks are modest. What happened? (q11)
- We have not heard of your college. What did it give you? (q12)
- A technical question from your degree, applied to a public problem. (q13)
- You topped your degree and stopped. Why not research? (q14)
- There is a gap of three years. What were you doing? (q15)
- You did a master's in [subject] and never used it. Why? Integrity; "to keep options open" is acceptable if said plainly.
Employment (7)
- What does your company actually do, in words my mother would understand? Clear exposition; the board tests whether you can explain your own work.
- Why leave a well-paid private job? (q29)
- Describe a failure at work. (q30)
- A time you disagreed with your manager. (q31)
- How did you prepare while working full time? Did your employer know? (q32)
- You are already in the state civil service. Why move? (q33)
- Your industry on trial: is microfinance helping or trapping? (q34)
Hobbies, prizes and extracurriculars (12)
- What did you read last month, and what did the author get wrong? (q22)
- What has cricket taught you that a textbook could not? (q23)
- The most difficult dish you cook, and why it is difficult. (q24)
- Would you photograph a grieving family for the district record? (q25)
- Sing a line, or explain a raga to someone who has never heard one. (q26)
- How many children, how often, and what did you learn? (q27)
- The most dangerous situation on a trek, and what you did. (q28)
- If the service left time for only one hobby, which would you keep and which would you drop? Depth; the board learns which hobby is real.
- How will you follow this hobby in a block headquarters with no club, no court and no bookshop? Practicality; a plan shows the hobby is yours.
- Tell us about this prize. What exactly did you do to win it? Specifics; a team prize invites "what was your part".
- You were president of the college union. What did you promise and fail to deliver? Leadership and honesty; a leader with no failure has not led.
- What did NCC teach you that a classroom did not? One habit, one story, no slogans.
Optional subject (6)
- Why this optional when your degree is in something else? (q16)
- Use your optional to explain last-mile failure. (q17)
- Which thinker from your optional would you make a collector? (q18)
- Your optional is accused of being detached from Indian reality. Is it? (q19)
- Which text from your literature optional should every officer read? (q20)
- The one map a new collector should ask for on day one. (q21)
Service, cadre and medium preferences (8)
- Why IAS first, and what specifically can an IAS officer do that an IPS officer cannot? (q57)
- You placed IFS above IPS. Is it to live abroad? (q58)
- You asked for your home state as cadre. Can you act against people you know? (q59)
- If allotted a service you placed low, will you join or reappear? (q60)
- You placed IRS above IPS. Why? Specific knowledge of what the revenue services do; "work-life balance" is honest but needs a second reason.
- Why this home cadre preference? A reason beyond distance from home.
- Would you accept a North-East cadre willingly? Integrity; the board can tell a rehearsed yes from a considered one.
- You wrote the Mains in English and opted for Hindi in the interview. Why? In recent cycles the choice has been yours; give the real reason, usually that you think faster in Hindi, and stop.
Sixty questions, and almost every one of them was written by you, months ago, when you filled a form. That is the point of this page.
How to write hobbies you can defend for ten minutes
The hobbies field produces the sharpest follow-ups in the whole interview, because it is the one field where the board can test truth directly and quickly. A member who plays chess will ask about an opening; a member who reads will ask about a book; a member who cooks will ask about a dish. The rule we give every candidate is simple: write only a hobby you could talk about for ten minutes with an expert who is trying to catch you out. For most people that is one to three hobbies, and that is enough. Depth of interest is a quality the notification names; breadth is not.
The ten-minute test, applied
| Hobby as written | First question | Third question | Can you survive it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reading | What did you read last month? | What did the author get wrong, and who disagrees with them? | Only if you finished two books this year and have an opinion on each |
| Reading history of modern India | Which historian do you trust on Partition? | Where do two of them disagree on the same event? | A narrower hobby is easier to defend, provided it is true |
| Cricket | Which position do you play and at what level? | Explain the DRS umpire's call rule to a lay person | Yes if you play; no if you only watch, in which case write "following cricket" |
| Cooking | The hardest dish you make | Why does the rice break in biryani? | Yes if you cook weekly; the questions are technical |
| Teaching underprivileged children | How many, how often, where? | What did the Class 7 child who could not read need, exactly? | Only with the numbers and one child's story |
| Listening to music | Which artist, which album, why? | What is the difference between a raga and a scale? | Usually not; "listening" is read as filler unless you can be specific |
| Travelling | The last place you went, alone or with whom, and what you learned | What would you change in the administration of that place? | Yes if you can name three trips and an observation from each |
How to phrase the field
- Be specific enough to steer the board. "Reading" invites anything. "Reading Hindi fiction, Premchand to Geetanjali Shree" tells the board where you are strong and sends the questions there.
- Add a verifiable marker if one exists. A tournament played, a certificate, a performance, a blog with dates. The board rarely checks, but the marker disciplines you.
- Separate hobbies from achievements. A prize goes in the prizes field. A hobby is what you still do; if you stopped three years ago, say "formerly" or leave it out.
- Prepare the policy angle of each hobby. Cricket leads to sports funding (q23); photography leads to privacy and consent (q25); trekking leads to disaster preparedness (q28). Boards move from the personal to the public in one step.
What not to write, and what to do if you already did
- A hobby you took up this month for the form. The third question will find the floor.
- "Social service" or "helping the poor" without a place, a frequency and a number.
- A religious or political activity you are not willing to discuss neutrally for ten minutes. You may hold it; the question is whether you can defend it with balance.
- A language you cannot hold a conversation in. A board member may simply switch to it.
- Anything that contradicts another field. A hobby of "long-distance running" and a medical row that says otherwise will be noticed.
- Work responsibilities inflated beyond your designation. The technical follow-up only the doer can answer is the standard check.
If you already wrote something you cannot defend, you have two honest options. If DAF-II lets you revise that field in your cycle, revise it. If it does not, prepare it properly in the weeks you have: read the two books, cook the dish ten times, call the organisation you volunteered with and get the numbers right. What you must not do is hope the board skips it. In our reading of candidates' accounts, the weakest hobby on the form is the one most often picked, because an experienced member can see it is the weakest.
The gap between the two forms
Boards sometimes compare what you wrote before the Mains with what you added after it. A new job between the two windows invites "why did you join if you were going to leave"; a new achievement added after the Mains invites "when did you find the time". Neither is a trap if you have a plain reason. Both are traps if you had hoped nobody would notice.
From form to board: a two-week DAF drill
Last cycle's gap between the Mains result and the first boards was about two weeks. Here is how to spend them on the form, assuming you also keep up the newspaper routine from the roadmap.
- Day 1: print and annotate. Print the form as you submitted it at each stage. Against every field write the questions in the table above that apply to you, plus any the field obviously invites that we have not listed. Expect forty to sixty.
- Days 2 to 4: the home ground. District and state first. For each question write beats one and two of the frame from the question bank page: position and reason. Source every fact you intend to say from the state Economic Survey, the Census or the district website, and write the source next to it.
- Days 5 to 7: education, work, optional. One field a day, aloud, in the medium you declared. Record each answer on your phone or in the TalkDrill mock interview, which asks the follow-up and keeps the recording.
- Days 8 to 9: hobbies. Run the ten-minute test on each hobby with a friend who knows the subject and is told to be unkind. Drop or deepen.
- Days 10 to 11: preferences. Service order, home cadre preference, medium. Write one reason per service and for your cadre choice that is not about salary or distance from home.
- Days 12 to 13: two full mocks. Thirty minutes each, DAF only, no current affairs. Score on the seven qualities from the notification.
- Day 14: the 90-second introduction, which is the DAF in miniature, re-recorded until it sounds like speech.
The form was the last thing you wrote before the board. Make sure it is also the thing you know best when you walk in.