The single most important thing to understand before 30 September is that CGL 2026 Tier-1 is not really a 60-minute paper any more. The Commission has introduced sectional timing of 15 minutes per section, which means it is four separate 15-minute papers played back to back. A section closes when its own timer runs out, you do not return to it, and time you save in one section cannot be spent in another. Every old piece of advice built on 'finish General Awareness fast and give the spare minutes to Quant' is now wrong. This page rebuilds the plan around what the clock actually does, section by section, with the numbers you need: 25 questions in 900 seconds is 36 seconds per question, and no section can bail out another.
Four sections, 25 questions and 50 marks each, 100 questions and 200 marks in 60 minutes, +2 for a correct answer and -0.50 for a wrong one. For CGL 2026, each section carries its own 15-minute timer and closes when that timer ends; unused time does not carry over and you cannot return to a closed section. That is 36 seconds per question in every section, whether the question is a one-line synonym or a mensuration sum. Read the instructions on your admit card and the Commission's notice on ssc.gov.in before the exam.
Our free full mocks use 100 questions in four sections of 25 with 15-minute sectional locks, so the section closes on you in practice exactly as it will in the hall. The first time a section locks with five questions unmarked is a shock; it is much better for that to happen at home in September than in your actual shift.
The post-mock AI analysis separates time-pressure losses from conceptual ones. That is the whole game in a sectionally-timed paper: a question you got wrong because you were rushing needs a pacing fix, while a question you got wrong because you did not know the concept needs to be abandoned this fortnight, not revised.
After a mock the system builds a seven-day plan from your own results. Two weeks out, a good plan is narrow: if your Quant section is where the timer beats you, the plan targets the specific arithmetic families that cost you seconds rather than sending you back through the whole syllabus.
The Daily Practice Paper with its streak and daily leaderboard gives you a small timed set every day, which is the right dose between full mocks. Pacing is a habit built by frequency, not by marathon sessions, and a daily timed set keeps the 36-second rhythm alive on the days you are not sitting a full mock.
Yes. Sectional timing of 15 minutes per section was introduced for CGL 2026 in the notification issued on 21 May 2026, and it is the biggest structural change in this cycle. The total is still 60 minutes and 100 questions, but the time is fenced off section by section. Please confirm the exam-day instructions on your own admit card and on ssc.gov.in, since the Commission's instructions are the final word.
No. That is precisely what sectional timing removes. Unused time in one section does not carry forward, so the nine spare minutes stay in General Awareness whether you use them or not. The correct response is to spend them inside General Awareness, re-reading the questions you were unsure about, rather than sitting idle or clicking through to nothing.
Twenty-five questions in fifteen minutes is 36 seconds per question on average. That average is misleading in practice, because a synonym question should take you ten seconds and a data interpretation set will take ninety. The useful way to hold it is as a budget: if a question has taken more than about 45 seconds and you cannot see the finish, mark an option and move, because the two marks are not worth the three questions you will lose behind it.
Stop trying to attempt all 25. With a hard 15-minute wall, the realistic target for most candidates is a clean first pass over the arithmetic-style questions, then one block of geometry, mensuration or trigonometry that you are genuinely quick at. Give the last 60 seconds to marking an option on everything still blank, because at +2/-0.5 a marked guess has a small positive expected value and a blank has none.
Both, but for different things. Full timed mocks are how you test whether the whole 60 minutes holds together, and two or three a week is enough in the last fortnight. Short daily timed sets are how you keep the per-question rhythm sharp without burning yourself out. What you should stop doing entirely is untimed practice, because it trains a pace you will not be allowed to use.
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