Tier I (prelims)

Subject

General Awareness 50

Reasoning 50

Maths 50

English 50

Total 200

Time-2 hours. No. of question =200

Negative marking: 0.25 marks

SSC CGL Tier 1 Cutoffs (2011, 2012)

Out of 200 marks.

Year 2011 2012

General 86.75 82

SC 63.5 64

ST 63.25 62

OBC 70.25 70

EXS 60 25

OH 50 60

HH 50 25

VH 50 25

Topic 2010 2011 2012

Static

Polity 7 5 8

Indian History+Culture 5 6 5

Geograhpy

(Physical+Indian)+Biodiversity 6 11 6

Economy 11 7 4

Subtotal (Static) 29 29 23

Science

Biology 6 4 8

Chemistry 4 4 3

Physics+Space 7 6 4

Computer 1 2 2

Subtotal (Science) 18 16 17

Crap

Misc.GK, Sports, PIN, Books, Current

Affairs 3 3 6

Yearbook (institutes, schemes, dates

etc.) 0 2 4

Subtotal (Crap) 3 5 10

Grand Total 50 50 50

Indian Polity

can be solved via NIOS zip files (given @Bottom), in combination with Lucent.

Also prepare current affairs associated with polity. But “major” current affairs only.

For example Shree-Krishna Committee =Telengana. Who is the chairman of new Finance Commission,

who is the new CJI etc.etc.etc.

Approach Indian History?

Indian History is subdivided into three parts

Ancient

Harappa, Vedic Age,

Maurya, Sangam etc.

Medieval

Delhi Sultanate,

Mughals etc.

Modern

1857 Sepoy Mutiny +

Freedom struggle.

Start with TN State education board books class 11 and 12 (they’re better than NCERT for the history

portion, free download at bottom).

Then use Lucent to fill up the missing details.

SSC questions on History, are mostly from the important personalities and events. So, Please donot

waste too much time in mugging up trivial names, dates etc.

Approach Culture?

Culture= art, painting, dances, temples, mosques, Architecture etc.

Most of the “Culture” happened during Ancient + medieval. So, you’ll simultaneously prepare it while

going through NCERT Textbooks.

Lastly Lucent to fill up the missing details.

+Winner of Gyanpith award, Sangeet Natak etc. (ONLY IF you’ve time, else don’t bother much.)

That pretty much sums up History + culture. Although revision =essential.

Geography+Biodiversity+Environment

1. NCERT textbooks: Social Science Class 7 to 10

2. NCERT Geography Class 11, 12.

3. Environment and biodiversity ZIP file of NIOS.

(^free download links given @bottom of this article)

Finally Lucent to fill up any missing details, such as names of multipurpose river valley projects. But

here again, don’t waste time with numbers.

Hirakud=Mahanadi River in Odisha=important.

Hirakud=4800m long = useless.

Economy

Generally very straightforward questions based on definition and concepts of Economy.

Only major “current affairs”. Usually SSC’s Economy questions are based on budget. (if at all they

ask from current affairs.)

Science

Physics Chem Bio

Gravity uses, common names and composition

of various chemicals.

Parts of plant and

their functions

Motion Alloys Parts of body, their

functions

Work Definition based questions. (heat,

oxidation, reduction etc)

Basics of animal

kingdom.

Pressure Disease

Units of measurement

Sound

Heat

Eletronics

Magnetism

By and large the science questions come from ^above topics. (it doesn’t mean other topics are not

important though!)

Best way to prepare science=NCERTs.

Science tech related current affairs are usually not asked in SSC exam.

At most sometimes current-affairs question on NASA satellite launch etc. So just keep an eye on major

events, without doing any Ph.D.

Candidates from science background shouldnot ride with overconfidence. Because whatever you have

learned in college = not asked here. And whatever you had prepared in highschool= long evaporated from

your memory.

Hence start with the basic NCERT Science textbooks of Class 7 to 10, irrespective of graduation.

CRAP (Misc.GK, Sports, PIN etc.)

“Duration”

Based on SSC-CGL Tier I conducted in July 2012.

1. They had asked question on Shree Krishna Committee report. (which was released somewhere in Jan

2011)

2. Author of book Kurukshetra to Kargil. (again launched in Jan 2011)

3. Santosh Football trophy (somewhere in May 2011)

So, Duration of Current affairs for SSC-CGL, is last one calendar year. (i.e. if you’re preparing for

2013, then prepare major events starting from Jan 2012.)

PIN=persons in news, like xyz person won ICC cricketer of the year award, new CJI, new army chief,

sports winners etc. There is no dearth of magazines and books circulating this garbage.

But always remember, your mind has a limited memory capacity. So prepare the big personas, major

events, avoid the small timers.

Same for books and authors.

Same for places in news.

Same for [Yearbook]: Government schemes, location of various Government institutes etc. (you’ll find

them in Lucent.)

Most importantly: these things don’t stay in long term memory. Hence frequent revision essential.

Source?

Competitionmaster.com (they release monthly updates) OR Pratiyogita Darpan (PD).

Extra-preparation

Once you’ve sufficiently prepared Maths+English+Reasoning+General Awareness, solve the as many old

question papers of SSC exam as you can. (Blank answersheets given @bottom)

Why should you practice old papers?

1. SSC recycles questions. You solve 10 papers, then 11th paper has hardly anything new, surprizing or

challanging for you.

2. Trains Your Brain For Negative Marking

3. Improves Your Speed.

Google search will lead you to many download links for SSC papersets.

Problem?

1) scanned PDF files are in very poor quality. + the half mile long watermark only blocks the view= very

tiresome for the eyes to read.

2) most of the time, they don’t contain solutions. Hence makes the whole exercise frustrating. Because you

can’t evaluate your performance without going wasting another hour and so in searching the answers

manually (for GK etc.)

So if you can afford, just go for the Paperset of Kiran Prakashan.

Good thing: they give detailed solution of each and every question.

Same way, if you can afford, buy the NCERT textbooks from market (even second hand-used books will

work).

Priority order for General Awareness preparation= static >> science >> crap

Essential booklist/reading list for SSC-CGL (GA)

1. NCERT, NIOS (free download links @bottom)

2. Lucent’s General Knowledge book

3. competitionmaster.com OR Pratiyogita Darpan (from Jan 2012)

Revise minimum three times, practice a few old papers. General awareness shouldn’t give much trouble.

NCERTs (English) Free download

TN State edu Books (for History) https://files.secureserver.net/0fnzZYT7SDNuC9

NIOS (for Culture) https://files.secureserver.net/0fdAWETp4sONW5

NCERT files: topicwise: https://files.secureserver.net/0fHCh0CLd6Az63