SSC CGL Syllabus 2026 — Complete Tier I & Tier II Breakdown

SSC CGL 2026 notification is out with 12,256 vacancies. Before diving into preparation, knowing the exact syllabus is non-negotiable. This guide covers every topic from Tier I and Tier II so you don't waste a single day on out-of-syllabus content.

That matters more in SSC CGL than in most exams, because the Commission publishes the syllabus as a list of subject headings rather than topics. "Quantitative Aptitude" tells you nothing about whether to study coordinate geometry. The real syllabus is the one visible in the last several years of question papers, and this guide is written from that — topic by topic, with what each is actually worth and how to approach it.

One structural fact should shape everything you do from day one: Tier I is a screening test whose marks are discarded, and the entire merit list is built on Tier II. Candidates who prepare for the exam they can see — the 100-question Tier I paper — and postpone Tier II until they have cleared, consistently run out of time. Tier II Mathematical Abilities is a substantially harder paper than Tier I Quant, and eight weeks is not enough to bridge that gap.

SSC CGL 2026 Exam Pattern at a Glance

Tier I Syllabus (100 Questions · 200 Marks · 60 Min)

General Intelligence & Reasoning (25Q · 50M)

• Analogy (Word, Number, Letter)
• Odd One Out
• Coding-Decoding
• Blood Relations
• Direction & Distance
• Series (Number, Letter, Figure)
• Venn Diagram
• Syllogism
• Matrix
• Non-Verbal Reasoning (Pattern, Figure Completion)
• Statement & Conclusion

General Awareness (25Q · 50M)

• History (Ancient, Medieval, Modern)
• Indian Geography (Physical, Economic)
• Indian Polity & Constitution
• Economy (Basic concepts, Budget, schemes)
• General Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology)
• Current Affairs (last 6 months)
• Static GK (Sports, Awards, Books, Capitals)

Quantitative Aptitude (25Q · 50M)

• Number System
• Percentage
• Ratio & Proportion
• Average
• Profit, Loss & Discount
• Simple & Compound Interest
• Time & Work
• Time, Speed & Distance
• Mensuration (2D & 3D)
• Algebra (Basic)
• Geometry & Trigonometry
• Data Interpretation (Bar, Pie, Line, Table)

English Comprehension (25Q · 50M)

• Reading Comprehension
• Fill in the Blanks
• Sentence Improvement
• Error Spotting
• Para Jumbles (Sentence Ordering)
• Cloze Test
• Synonyms & Antonyms
• Idioms & Phrases
• One Word Substitution
• Narration & Voice

How to Approach Each Tier I Section

Sixty minutes for a hundred questions works out to 36 seconds each, which sounds impossible until you realise the paper is not uniform. Roughly half of it is designed to be answered in under twenty seconds, and the time you save there is what funds the questions that genuinely need ninety.

Reasoning — your fastest section, attempt it first

Reasoning in Tier I is the most scoring section in the paper and the least time-hungry. Analogy, odd-one-out, coding-decoding, series and Venn diagrams are pattern-recognition questions that a trained candidate answers almost on sight. Aim to finish all 25 in twelve to thirteen minutes with 23 or more correct. If you are consistently spending more than fifteen minutes here, the problem is almost always non-verbal reasoning — mirror images, paper folding, figure completion — which responds quickly to a week of focused practice.

General Awareness — the cheapest marks in the exam

Twenty-five questions with no calculation and no reasoning, answerable in six or seven minutes. You either know a fact or you do not, and no amount of exam-hall cleverness changes that. This makes GA the highest return-on-hours section in SSC CGL — and the one most candidates neglect because it cannot be "solved". Static GK from NCERT covers the bulk of it; history, polity and geography together are usually more than half the section. Science is largely class 6–10 level. Current affairs typically accounts for four to seven questions, weighted to the last six months.

Quantitative Aptitude — where the time goes

This is the section that eats the clock. Budget twenty to twenty-two minutes and accept that you will not attempt all 25. Open with simplification, percentage, ratio, average and profit-loss — the short arithmetic that resolves in under a minute. Geometry, trigonometry and mensuration take longer and should come next. Data Interpretation is usually a single set of four or five questions and is worth doing if the numbers are clean.

The highest-leverage habit here is calculation speed, not new chapters. Tables to 30, squares to 30, cubes to 20, and fraction-to-percentage conversions up to 1/20 turn a large fraction of the section from calculation into recall. Twenty minutes a day for a month is enough to build this, and it pays back in every mock thereafter.

English — decided before you enter the hall

English in Tier I is heavily vocabulary-weighted: synonyms, antonyms, idioms, one-word substitution and spelling can be twelve or more of the 25 questions. These are recall, so the section is largely decided by what you memorised in the preceding months rather than anything you do on exam day. Error spotting and sentence improvement follow a narrow, repetitive set of rules — subject-verb agreement, tense, prepositions, articles, parallelism — and reward rule-learning over instinct.

Build a vocabulary habit early: ten words a day, revised weekly, with the word used in a sentence rather than glanced at in a list. Over four months that is roughly 1,200 words, which comfortably covers the range SSC draws from. Reading Comprehension in Tier I is short and factual, so it is safe to leave it for last.

A workable Tier I time split

Tier II Paper I Syllabus (150Q · 390M)

Tier II Paper I is the most important paper — compulsory for all posts. Every question carries 3 marks and every wrong answer costs 1, in every section. Computer Knowledge is qualifying, so the 390 marks that count come from the other four sections.

Mathematical Abilities — High Priority Topics

• Number System & HCF/LCM
• Percentage, Ratio & Proportion
• Profit/Loss, SI/CI
• Time & Work, Pipes & Cisterns
• Speed, Distance & Time (Trains, Boats)
• Mensuration — 2D & 3D
• Algebra — Polynomials, Linear Equations
• Geometry — Triangles, Circles, Quadrilaterals
• Trigonometry — Values, Heights & Distances
• Data Interpretation & Statistics
• Progression (AP, GP)

That marking deserves more attention than it usually gets. Each question is worth 3 marks and each wrong answer costs 1, so a wrong answer wipes out a third of a correct one. A blind guess between four options earns exactly nothing on average: one time in four you gain 3, three times in four you lose 1. Rule out one option and the same guess is worth about a third of a mark; rule out two and it is worth a full mark. The practical rule: never guess blind in Paper I, but do guess once you have eliminated an option or two.

Reasoning & General Intelligence (30Q · 90M)

• Puzzles and seating arrangement — longer than Tier I
• Series — number, letter, figure
• Coding-decoding and analogy
• Syllogism and Venn diagrams
• Blood relations, direction, order-ranking
• Non-verbal — mirror and water images, paper folding, embedded figures
• Statement & conclusion, statement & assumption

English Language & Comprehension (45Q · 135M) — the biggest single block

Forty-five questions at 3 marks each is 135 marks, which makes English the largest single component of Paper I — larger than Maths at 90. It is also more predictable than Maths, because so much of it is vocabulary and rule-based grammar rather than problem-solving. Candidates who treat English as the section they will "manage" and pour everything into Maths are optimising the wrong paper.

• Reading Comprehension — 2 to 3 passages, longer than Tier I
• Cloze test — paragraph-based
• Error spotting, sentence improvement, sentence rearrangement
• Active-passive voice and direct-indirect narration
• Synonyms, antonyms, idioms, one-word substitution, spelling
• Fill in the blanks and misspelt words

General Awareness (25Q · 75M)

The same syllabus as Tier I but asked with more precision — where Tier I might ask who founded a dynasty, Tier II is more likely to ask about a specific administrative reform under it. NCERT remains the foundation; the difference is depth of revision rather than breadth of new material.

Computer Knowledge (20Q · 60M) — Module III

Twenty questions worth three marks each, on a syllabus small enough to cover in a fortnight. This is the single best marks-per-hour trade in SSC CGL, and it is routinely the module candidates discover three weeks before the exam. Do it early.

• Computer fundamentals — organisation, generations, input/output devices, memory types
• Software — operating systems, MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, common shortcut keys
• Internet — WWW, browsers, email, search engines, URL and protocol basics
• Networking — LAN/WAN/MAN, topologies, IP basics
• Database basics — DBMS concepts, tables, keys
• Cyber security — viruses, malware, firewalls, phishing, safe practices

Most Important Topics — Tier I

How to Prepare for SSC CGL 2026

1. Complete NCERT (6–10) for History, Geography, Polity, Science — forms 60% of GK
2. Solve 50+ Maths questions daily — no shortcuts, build speed from accuracy
3. Do 1 full Tier I mock every week from Day 1 to track your baseline
4. Current Affairs: read daily (15 min). Last 6 months matter most for exam
5. English RC practice daily — 2 passages minimum
6. After 60 days, switch to Tier II Maths — it's harder and needs more time

A Six-Month SSC CGL Study Plan

Six months at four to five focused hours a day is a realistic runway for a first attempt from a standing start. The sequence below front-loads the things that take longest to build — calculation speed, vocabulary, GA recall — because those cannot be compressed at the end no matter how many hours you throw at them.

Five Mistakes That Cost People SSC CGL

1. Preparing only for Tier I. Tier I marks are discarded — the merit list is Tier II. Start Tier II Maths in month three, not after Tier I results.
2. Neglecting General Awareness because it cannot be solved. It is 25 questions in seven minutes with no working; hour for hour it is the best-value section in the paper.
3. Guessing blind in Tier II. At 3 marks correct and −1 wrong, a blind guess between four options earns nothing on average and only adds risk. Guess once you have ruled out at least one option.
4. Treating English as secondary. In Tier II Paper I it is 45 questions and 90 marks — the largest single block, larger than Maths.
5. Taking mocks without analysing them. A mock you did not analyse gave you a number, not information. Budget two hours of analysis per one-hour mock.

How to Use Mock Tests for SSC CGL

Most SSC CGL aspirants take mocks. Far fewer use them. A mock is a measuring instrument: its job is to tell you which topic, which habit and which minute of the paper is costing you marks. The score at the top of the result page is the least useful number on it.

When to start

Take one full Tier I mock in your first week, before you feel ready. That baseline tells you which of the four sections needs the most hours, and it removes the fear of the format early. After that, one mock a week is enough while you are still covering the syllabus. Move to two or three a week only in the final two months, when coverage is done and the remaining gains come from speed and selection.

What to record after every mock

• Section-wise attempts, correct answers and wrong answers, not just the total.
• Time spent per section, and which section you were in when you looked at the clock and panicked.
• Every wrong answer with a one-word reason: concept, calculation, misread, or guess.
• Every question you skipped that you could have solved with two more minutes.
• Any question you got right by luck. Treat it as wrong in your notes.

After five or six mocks the pattern is usually obvious. Candidates expect the problem to be a missing chapter, and it is usually something more ordinary: guesses in Maths eating the marks earned in GA, or English vocabulary questions answered on instinct and lost at −0.5 each. Those are cheaper to fix than a new chapter.

The Last 30 Days Before Tier I

The final month is for converting what you know into marks, not for learning new chapters. A topic started in the last three weeks rarely becomes reliable by exam day, and the time it takes comes out of revision of topics you already half-know, which are exactly the ones that slip under pressure.

1. Weeks 1–2: two to three full mocks a week, each followed by a full review. Revise from your error log, not from your textbooks.
2. Week 3: one mock every other day at the same time of day as your exam shift, so your concentration peaks when it needs to.
3. Week 4: no new material. Revise formulas, vocabulary lists, static GK notes and the last six months of current affairs. Take one light mock mid-week.
4. Final two days: rest, check the admit card and centre location, and sleep at a normal hour. Last-minute cramming costs more in fatigue than it adds in recall.

Frequently Asked Questions