Most people preparing for SSC MTS study for it as if it were one paper. It is not. The computer-based exam runs as two sessions, back to back on the same day, and the two follow opposite rules: Session-I carries no negative marking at all, while Session-II deducts one full mark for every wrong answer. More importantly, your merit is built from Session-II alone. Session-I only decides whether your Session-II answer sheet is evaluated at all. Once you understand that, the way you spend those 90 minutes changes completely.
Every question in both sessions carries 3 marks, so Session-I is 40 questions for 120 marks and Session-II is 50 questions for 150 marks — 90 questions and 270 marks in all. Each session runs for 45 minutes (60 minutes for candidates eligible for a scribe). Session-I closes automatically when its 45 minutes are over and Session-II begins immediately; you cannot carry unused time forward or go back. There is no negative marking in Session-I; in Session-II, one mark is deducted for each wrong answer. Both sessions are mandatory — skipping one disqualifies you. Session-I and the General Awareness part of Session-II are set in Hindi, English and thirteen regional languages. Candidates who have applied for Havaldar in CBIC and CBN face a Physical Efficiency Test and Physical Standard Test after the CBE. Section names, counts and marks here follow the Commission's notice of examination; confirm them against the notice for your own cycle before you plan around them.
Forty questions, 120 marks, and nothing taken away for a wrong answer. There is no mathematical reason to leave a single question blank in Session-I — a blind guess has positive expected value and a blank has zero. Yet in practice most candidates run out of clock and leave five or ten unmarked because they were still fighting a hard LCM question at minute 43. Our MTS-style practice enforces the 45-minute close, so you learn to sweep the paper, bank the easy marks, and spend the last two minutes filling in everything still empty.
General Awareness and English carry 150 marks between them, and the merit list is prepared solely from this session's normalised score. The minus-one penalty makes each careless answer a four-mark swing against a correct one, and a one-mark loss against simply leaving it. That changes the honest question from 'do I know this?' to 'have I narrowed it to two?' — at two options left, guessing is still worth it; at four wide open in General Awareness, it usually is not.
The hard lock between the two sessions is the part that surprises people in the hall. Finishing Session-I in 30 minutes buys you nothing; the extra 15 minutes disappear. Getting stuck on a long reasoning puzzle at minute 40 costs you the arithmetic questions you could have answered in seconds. Practising under a fixed sectional clock — the same thing our free mocks do — is the only way to build the instinct for when to abandon a question and move.
After a practice test, the AI groups every wrong answer as conceptual, calculation, careless or time-pressure. That distinction matters more in MTS than in most exams because the two sessions punish different failures. A careless slip in Session-I costs you nothing beyond the mark; the same slip in Session-II costs the mark plus a penalty. The 7-day plan built from that breakdown tells you whether you need more revision or simply more discipline in the last five minutes.
Only in Session-II. The Commission's notice states plainly that there is no negative marking in Session-I, and that one mark is deducted for each wrong answer in Session-II. Since every question is worth 3 marks, a wrong answer in Session-II leaves you 4 marks behind where a correct answer would have put you. The practical implication is that you should attempt all 40 questions in Session-I without hesitation, and be selective in Session-II.
Ninety questions for 270 marks in total. Session-I has 40 questions for 120 marks — 20 from Numerical and Mathematical Ability and 20 from Reasoning Ability and Problem Solving. Session-II has 50 questions for 150 marks — 25 from General Awareness and 25 from English Language and Comprehension. Each question carries 3 marks, and each session is allotted 45 minutes.
Not directly, but you cannot ignore it. The Commission evaluates Session-I first, and Session-II is evaluated only if you clear Session-I. The merit list is then prepared solely on the basis of your normalised Session-II score. So Session-I is a gate, not a scoring round — you have to clear it, but clearing it comfortably earns you no ranking advantage. Treat it as a hurdle you must not trip over, and put your revision effort where merit is decided.
The notice sets them as a percentage rather than a fixed score: 30% for UR candidates, 25% for OBC and EWS candidates, and 20% for all other categories. These apply to Session-I as well as Session-II. Because scores are normalised across shifts, the qualifying percentage applies to your normalised marks, not your raw ones. Note that clearing the qualifying percentage is not the same as clearing the cut-off — the cut-off for selection is set separately by state, category and age group after the exam.
Yes, for most of the paper. Questions are set in English, Hindi and thirteen regional languages — Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu — for the whole of Session-I and for the General Awareness part of Session-II. The English Language and Comprehension part is naturally in English only. If there is any discrepancy between the English version and your chosen language, the English version prevails.
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