NEW DELHI: In a first, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has released the provisional answer key for the 2026 Civil Services (Preliminary) examination held on May 24.The provisional key for the exam — based on which candidates are recommended to elite services like the IAS, IPS and IFS etc — helps aspirants to check their answers and estimate their scores in advance, while also allowing them to challenge possible errors in the answer key, as per their understanding. “The release of the provisional answer key reflects UPSC’s commitment to greater transparency, fairness, and integrity in the examination process while providing candidates an opportunity for informed and constructive participation,” UPSC said in a release on Wednesday.Candidates who appeared for CSE 2026 can submit their representations challenging the answer key, till 6 pm on May 31, through the dedicated ‘Question Paper Representation Portal (QPRep)’ available at upsconline.nic.in. Representations must be submitted by indicating the correct answer key as per the candidate’s understanding, along with a brief explanation and supporting documents from three authentic sources.All representations received from candidates will be placed before teams of subject experts for a comprehensive and meticulous review. These domain experts will carefully examine each representation, assess the supporting documents, and record their considered views regarding the correctness of the answer key for the concerned questions. The final answer key will be released only after the declaration of the final result.This year, nearly 5.49 lakh candidates appeared in the CSE (Prelims).