Most of what goes wrong on exam day goes wrong before the paper starts: at the gate, at the document desk, or in the first four minutes in front of a machine you have never used. None of it is difficult, but all of it is rule-bound, and examination centres do not make exceptions for candidates who have prepared for a year. This page covers what to carry to your CGL 2026 Tier-1 centre, what will be taken from you at the door, how reporting time and gate closing actually work, what happens at biometric and document verification, and what the computer-based screen in front of you looks like once you sit down. One instruction stands above everything here: your own admit card carries an instruction page, and wherever this page differs from it, your admit card is right.
On screen you get 100 questions for 200 marks in 60 minutes, four sections of 25 questions and 50 marks each, with +2 for a correct answer and -0.5 for a wrong one. Before the timer starts you will be shown an instruction screen and a login screen with your roll number. Read the instruction screen even though you think you know it: it is the authoritative statement of the duration and of how the sections and the question palette behave in your paper. Candidates eligible for compensatory time under SSC's PwBD provisions will see the duration applicable to them.
The free full mock is delivered in the same computer-based shape as Tier-1: 100 questions, four sections of 25, a running clock, +2 and -0.5. The point is that the palette, the mark-for-review habit and the moment of switching sections should all be boring to you by the time you sit at the centre. Nobody should be learning how a question palette works with 58 minutes left on a real paper.
Once your admit card gives you a shift, take at least two mocks at that hour, having eaten what you plan to eat and travelled if you can. A 9:00 am shift with a 7:45 am reporting time means being awake and alert by six, and that is a physiological change, not a decision. Mocks at the right time of day are the cheapest exam-day insurance available.
Roughly 29,000 of the questions in the bank are genuine previous-year SSC questions carrying the Commission's official answer keys. Familiarity with how SSC phrases a question is what stops you re-reading a stem three times under pressure. In the last week, practise from those rather than from anything invented.
The AI sorts your mistakes into conceptual, calculation, careless and time-pressure, and time-pressure errors are the ones exam-day discipline actually fixes. Run one analysis a few days before your paper and take its seven-day plan seriously about attempt order and pacing rather than content. Free accounts get one analysis a week and eight tutor messages a day, in Hindi or English, if a last doubt needs settling.
A clear printout of your admit card and one original government photo identity document whose details match the card, such as Aadhaar, PAN, Voter ID, Passport or Driving Licence. Photocopies and digital copies on a phone are not accepted as identity proof at SSC centres. Recent SSC admit cards have also asked for passport-size photographs and for a declaration written in your own running handwriting with your signature and left thumb impression on the Commission's copy, so complete that at home rather than at the gate. If your photo ID does not show your date of birth and your admit card asks for separate proof, carry that too.
Mobile phones, Bluetooth devices, earphones, smartwatches and fitness bands, calculators, any other electronic or communication device, books, notes, your own paper, and bags are all prohibited. Centres are not obliged to store your belongings safely, so the simplest approach is to leave everything except your documents, a pen and a transparent water bottle at home or with someone accompanying you. Rules on ordinary wrist watches vary by centre and some centres bar all watches, so do not depend on one for timing; the on-screen clock is your timer. Rough sheets are given at the centre and must be left behind at the end, and carrying your own sheets in can get you disqualified.
Your admit card prints a reporting time and, separately, a gate closing time, and these are not the same thing as the exam start. In recent CGL cycles reporting has been about an hour and a quarter before the paper and the gate has closed about half an hour before it, but this cycle's timings will be on your own card. Once the gate closes, no candidate is admitted for any reason, including traffic, a late train or a delayed cab. Plan to reach the centre well before the reporting time, and if the city is unfamiliar, locate the centre the previous day.
Before you are seated, centre staff verify your admit card against your original photo ID, capture biometric details such as a fingerprint, and usually photograph you at the desk; you will also be asked to sign the attendance record and the Commission's copy of the admit card. This is why the photograph, name and other details on your card need to match your ID, and why a wrong photograph is worth raising with your regional office in advance rather than at the desk. Biometric capture may be repeated after the paper in some centres. Reach early, because verification for a full hall takes time and being at the end of the queue is stressful before an exam that lasts only an hour.
Log in with the credentials given, then read the instruction screen properly rather than clicking past it, because it states the duration and how the sections and question palette behave in your paper. Check that your name, roll number, photograph and paper details on screen are yours, and raise anything wrong with the invigilator immediately, before the timer starts. If your machine is slow, the screen freezes or the question does not render, raise your hand at once and do not try to fix it yourself; lost time is compensated at the centre only if it is reported. Then take the first question calmly, because the opening two minutes set the pace for the remaining fifty-eight.
SSCIntel — free AI-powered SSC mock tests