Skip to content
Free shipping above ₹499
Oakspine Press

SSC & Railways

SSC CGL preparation

Combined Graduate Level — Inspector, Assistant, Auditor and other Group B and C posts.

24 free guides·Conducted by Staff Selection CommissionOfficial website

About the SSC CGL exam

SSC CGL is the Staff Selection Commission's exam for graduates. It fills Group B and Group C posts in central ministries and departments: Assistant Section Officer, inspectors in income tax, GST and customs, auditors, accountants and many more. It suits anyone with a degree who wants a central government career with a clear promotion ladder, and the pattern rewards steady practice more than any particular background.

Selection runs in two tiers. Tier 1 is a one-hour computer-based test with 25 questions each in reasoning, general awareness, quant and English, 15-minute sectional timers and 0.50 negative marking; it only qualifies you for Tier 2. Your rank comes from Tier 2 Paper I, where 390 marks count: maths and reasoning 90 each, English 135, general awareness 75. Each wrong answer there costs a full mark. The computer knowledge section and the data entry speed test must be cleared but add nothing. Separate statistics and finance papers apply only to certain posts.

Read the “Start here” guides first: the pattern, the posts, eligibility, the syllabus, the Tier 1 and Tier 2 strategies and a six-month plan. Then work subject by subject. Quant and English carry the most Tier 2 marks, so build them daily, and take timed mocks from early on.

SSC CGL exam pattern at a glance
StagesTier 1 (qualifying) → Tier 2 (merit) → document verification
Tier 1100 Qs, 200 marks, 60 min; 15 min per section; −0.50
Tier 2 Paper I (scored)Maths 90 + Reasoning 90 + English 135 + GA 75 = 390
Tier 2 negative marking3 marks per question; −1 per wrong answer
Tier 2 qualifying partsComputer Knowledge (60 marks) and DEST
Papers II and IIIStatistics and Finance & Economics, for specific posts; check the latest notification

Patterns change. Confirm details in the latest notification on the official website.

Start here

New to SSC CGL? Read these first, in this order.

  1. 1The SSC CGL exam pattern explainedSSC CGL recruits graduates to more than two dozen central government posts — from Income Tax Inspector to Assistant Section Officer — through two computer-based tiers. Tier 1 only decides who moves on; Tier 2 decides your rank. How each tier works, where the marks really are, what sectional timing and negative marking mean for your strategy, and how the pattern should shape your preparation.
  2. 2SSC CGL posts, pay levels and what the jobs involveAn Income Tax Inspector, an Assistant Section Officer in a central ministry, a CBI Sub-Inspector and an Auditor in the CAG's office all come through the same exam — but their work, postings and careers are very different. A clear guide to SSC CGL posts by pay level, what each job actually involves, how promotions tend to work, and how to decide which posts you really want.
  3. 3SSC CGL eligibility: age, education and physical standardsSSC CGL eligibility is not one rule but many. Most posts need only a bachelor's degree, but Junior Statistical Officer needs a strong mathematics or statistics background, age limits vary from post to post, and some posts demand physical and medical standards. How to read the eligibility rules correctly, the relaxations available, the cut-off date that trips people up, and a checklist before you apply.
  4. 4The SSC CGL syllabus, analysedThe SSC CGL syllabus looks like four long lists — arithmetic and geometry, reasoning types, English grammar and vocabulary, and everything under the sun in general awareness. Read it closely and a clearer picture emerges: a limited set of topics carries most of the marks, Tier 2 goes deeper in the same subjects, and a few areas deserve far less time than aspirants give them. A subject-by-subject analysis with priorities.
  5. 5SSC CGL Tier 1 strategy under sectional timingWith 15 minutes for each section, SSC CGL Tier 1 is no longer a paper where you can race through General Awareness to buy time for maths. Every section needs its own plan. How to approach each quarter-hour, how many questions to attempt, when to guess and when to skip, and how to train for the exact rhythm of the exam — because Tier 1 doesn't give rank, but it can end your year.
  6. 6SSC CGL Tier 2 Paper I strategyTier 2 is where SSC CGL ranks are made. Paper I has 130 scored questions worth 390 marks, each wrong answer costs a full mark, and English alone carries 135 marks. The candidates who get the posts they want are rarely the ones who attempt the most — they are the ones who attempt accurately. How to plan each module, how to think about negative marking, and how to use the weeks between Tier 1 and Tier 2.
  7. 7A six-month SSC CGL planSix months is enough to prepare seriously for SSC CGL if the time is used in the right order: build concepts in quant and English first, turn reasoning into a daily habit, keep general awareness ticking steadily, and move to full mock tests early enough to learn from them. A month-by-month plan with a daily timetable, checkpoints and adjustments for working candidates and repeaters.
  8. 8How to use mock tests for SSC CGLMany SSC CGL aspirants take a hundred mock tests and improve very little. Others take thirty and climb steadily. The difference is not the number of tests but what happens after each one. When to start mocks, how often to take them, how to analyse a mock in under an hour, what an error log looks like, the arithmetic of guessing, and how to tell whether your scores are really improving.

Subject by subject

Strategy

The pattern, posts and pay levels, eligibility, the syllabus, Tier 1 and Tier 2 strategy, mocks, normalisation, post preferences, DEST and document verification. Read these first so you know which marks count and which sections only have to be cleared.

All 15 Strategy guides

Quantitative Aptitude

Arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mensuration, trigonometry, data interpretation and statistics. It is 25 questions in Tier 1 and the 90-mark Mathematical Abilities module in Tier 2, where each wrong answer costs a full mark, so accuracy matters as much as speed.

All 9 Quantitative Aptitude guides

Latest SSC CGL guides

SSC CGLQuantitative AptitudeTime and work, pipes and cisterns for SSC CGL"A can do a job in 12 days and B in 18 days" — the opening line of countless SSC questions. The fastest way to solve them is the LCM method: treat the whole job as a number of units, find each person's daily output, and the rest is simple arithmetic. Time and work, work with efficiency, wages, alternate days, and pipes and cisterns — all with worked examples and answers. 4 min read·28 Sept 2026SSC CGLQuantitative AptitudeSimple and compound interest for SSC CGLInterest questions in SSC CGL come in a few standard shapes — find the interest, find the rate, compare simple and compound interest, compute half-yearly compounding, or work out instalments. The formulas are short; the skill lies in using percentage multipliers and the difference formulas so you never need to expand long powers. Worked examples and answers. 3 min read·27 Sept 2026SSC CGLQuantitative AptitudeAverages, mixtures and alligation for SSC CGLWhen a new player joins a team and the average age changes by half a year, or a milkman mixes water into milk and still makes a profit, SSC CGL is testing the same idea — averages and weighted averages. Learn the "deviation" method for averages and the alligation cross for mixtures, and these questions drop from two minutes to thirty seconds. Worked examples and answers. 4 min read·26 Sept 2026SSC CGLQuantitative AptitudeRatio, proportion and partnership for SSC CGLRatios are the quiet workhorse of SSC maths. They appear in their own questions — dividing money, combining ratios, finding the fourth proportional — and they power partnership, mixtures, ages, speed and work problems. How to think in "parts", combine and compare ratios, handle proportions, and solve partnership questions quickly, with worked examples and answers. 4 min read·25 Sept 2026SSC CGLQuantitative AptitudeProfit, loss and discount for SSC CGLProfit and loss questions in SSC CGL follow a few recurring stories — a shopkeeper who marks up and then gives a discount, a dishonest trader with false weights, two articles sold at the same price, one at a profit and one at a loss. Each story has a clean method. Cost price, selling price and marked price, successive discounts, false weights and the classic traps, with worked examples and answers. 3 min read·25 Sept 2026SSC CGLQuantitative AptitudePercentages for SSC CGLPercentage is the single most important arithmetic topic in SSC CGL. It appears directly, and it sits underneath profit and loss, discount, interest, population growth and every data interpretation set. Master the multiplier method, successive changes, the "percentage more or less" trap and fraction equivalents, and a whole family of questions becomes fast and safe. Worked examples and practice with answers. 3 min read·25 Sept 2026