If you are opening the CHSL notification for the first time, the pattern looks deceptively simple: 100 questions, 60 minutes, four sections of 25. What the table does not say out loud is what actually decides your score. Tier-1 now runs on a sectional timer, so time saved in Reasoning cannot be spent on Quant. Tier-2 changes the marking arithmetic entirely, with 3 marks for a correct answer and a full mark taken off for a wrong one. And two parts of Tier-2 are only qualifying, which means hours spent perfecting them earn you nothing on the merit list. This page lays out both tiers exactly as the Commission structures them, and explains what each rule does to your attempt strategy.
Tier-1 is 100 questions for 200 marks in 60 minutes (extended to 80 minutes for candidates eligible for a scribe), with 2 marks for a correct answer and 0.50 deducted for a wrong one. From the 2026 cycle the Commission has introduced sectional timing in Tier-1: each of the four sections gets 15 minutes and locks when its timer ends, so unused time does not carry forward. Tier-2 Session-I is 135 objective questions for 405 marks in 2 hours 15 minutes, at 3 marks per correct answer and 1 mark deducted per wrong answer across Section-I, Section-II and Module-I of Section-III; the module timings announced are 30 minutes for Mathematical Abilities, 30 for Reasoning, 40 for English, 20 for General Awareness and 15 for the Computer Knowledge Test. The Computer Knowledge module is compulsory to attempt but qualifying in nature. Tier-2 Session-II is the Skill Test for DEO posts or the Typing Test for LDC/JSA, also qualifying. Final merit is drawn from Section-I and Section-II of Tier-2 only. Question counts and marks above are the announced structure; always confirm dates, vacancies and any cycle-specific change in the current official notification at ssc.gov.in.
Our free full mock is 100 questions in four sections of 25, marked +2 and -0.5, with a 15-minute lock on each section. That last detail is the one most free tests skip, and it is the one that changes behaviour: you cannot rescue a bad Quant section with leftover English time. Practising under the lock is the only way to find out whether your section order and your per-question pace actually survive contact with the timer.
In Tier-1 a wrong answer costs you a quarter of what a right one earns. In Tier-2 it costs a third, because the scheme is +3 and -1. That is a real shift in how much a coin-flip guess is worth, and it means the attempt threshold you trained for in Tier-1 is slightly too aggressive for Tier-2. Our mocks are built to the Tier-1 specification and marked +2 and -0.50, so treat the leave-it instinct they train as a Tier-1 instinct and tighten it deliberately when you move on to Tier-2 material.
Around 29,000 of the roughly 31,000 questions in our bank are genuine previous-year SSC questions carrying the Commission's own official answer keys. They are filed by subject and topic rather than by which exam they came from, so there is no CHSL-only switch to flick - what you get is SSC's real past material. That still matters here, because exam pattern is only half the picture: the other half is the depth SSC actually asks at, and you learn that from questions the Commission set rather than from invented lookalikes.
After each mock, the AI sorts every mistake into conceptual, calculation, careless or time-pressure. Under sectional timing this becomes unusually informative: time-pressure errors tend to cluster in one or two sections rather than spread evenly, which tells you exactly which 15-minute block is broken. The same report builds a 7-day plan from those errors and estimates your All-India rank against the published SSC CGL Tier-1 cut-off trend for 2020-24, which is the series we hold - CHSL's own cut-offs are published separately in each cycle's result PDF.
Tier-1 has 100 objective questions carrying 200 marks, to be attempted in 60 minutes. The four sections are General Intelligence, General Awareness, Quantitative Aptitude (Basic Arithmetic Skill) and English Language (Basic Knowledge), with 25 questions and 50 marks each. Candidates eligible for a scribe get 80 minutes. Every question is multiple choice with four options.
Yes. From the 2026 cycle the Commission introduced sectional timing in Tier-1, with 15 minutes allotted to each of the four sections within the same 60-minute total. When a section's timer runs out, that section closes and you move on, so you cannot bank time from an easy section to spend on a hard one. This is a genuine change from the older format where the full hour could be distributed freely, and it rewards candidates who have a fixed per-section plan rather than a flexible one.
Tier-1 gives 2 marks for a correct answer and deducts 0.50 for a wrong one, so a wrong answer erases one quarter of a correct answer. Tier-2 Session-I gives 3 marks and deducts 1, so a wrong answer erases one third. The deduction in Tier-2 applies to Section-I, Section-II and Module-I of Section-III. In practical terms, a blind guess is a slightly worse bet in Tier-2 than in Tier-1, and an educated guess between two surviving options is still usually worth taking in both.
No. The Computer Knowledge Test is Module-I of Section-III in Tier-2 and is mandatory to attempt, but it is qualifying in nature, which means it must be cleared and does not add to your merit score. Final merit is prepared from Section-I and Section-II of Tier-2. That said, do not skip it: failing to attempt a compulsory module or failing to qualify it can take you out of the process entirely, so treat it as a short, low-cost box to tick rather than a scoring opportunity.
Session-II is Module-II of Section-III, the Skill Test or Typing Test, conducted on the same day as Session-I. Candidates applying for Data Entry Operator posts take the Skill Test, while LDC and JSA candidates take the Typing Test. Both are qualifying in nature and do not add marks to the merit list. The required speeds and the exact duration for your post category are specified in the official notification, so read that section carefully rather than relying on a figure quoted second-hand.
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