Hello everyone, if you’re looking for the SSC CGL syllabus for tier 1, 2, 3 & 4, you’ve come to the right place.
Here, you’ll know a complete SSC CGL syllabus for tier 1, 2, 3 & 4 so that you can make the right strategy for it.
First of all, let me tell you that preparing for SSC CGL isn’t an easy task, but it’s not impossible.
I’m saying so because of its multi-levels. It means you’ll have to pass out the total four levels ( Tier 1, 2, 3 & 4 ) to get a job via SSC CGL.
But as people know, success is beyond fear, so keep working hard and surely one day it’ll fall down at your feet.
Hence, without wasting your valuable time, let’s dive into the SSC CGL syllabus for tier 1, 2, 3 & 4.
Know also, the syllabus of SSC CHSL.
Table of Contents
SSC CGL Syllabus for Tier 1, 2, 3 & 4 –
The Combined Graduate Level ( CGL ) exam is conducted every year by Staff Selection Commission ( SSC )
Thousands of candidates are selected by the commission.
However, it’s hard to qualify for the exam on the first attempt.
But, sometimes it has been found that candidates clear this exam on the very first attempt due to their hard work.
As I have already told you that the exam has four sections ( Tier 1, 2, 3 & 4 ) and it’s compulsory to qualify for all tiers.
It means if you’ve decided to prepare for SSC CGL, you will have to work hard.
Finally, take a look at the provided sequence of the complete SSC CGL syllabus for tier 1, 2, 3 & 4.
1. SSC CGL Syllabus for Tier 1 –
The vast part of this exam is Tier-l.
It’s a CBT ( Computer Based Test ) and consists of four subjects ( General Awareness, General Intelligence & Reasoning, Quantitative Aptitude & English ).
Every subject in Tier-I has 25 questions or it can be said that the total number of questions is 100 and each question is marked by 2 numbers.
A table is shown below in which you can easily find out how many questions are in each subject and how many marks are allotted for each subject.
S.N | Subjects | No of Questions | Marks |
1. | General Awareness | 25 | 50 |
2. | General Intelligence & Reasoning | 25 | 50 |
3. | Quantitative Aptitude | 25 | 50 |
4. | English Comprehension | 25 | 50 |
To solve these 100 questions, there is a definite time interval that is 60 minutes. It means, along with your intelligence, speed is also checked.
1. General Awareness
In this component, questions are related to general awareness, every day observations of candidate and also current events.
See the managed table below.
1. | History | 8. | Books & Authors |
2. | Geography | 9. | Polpulation census |
3. | Economy | 10. | Awards |
4. | Science & Sports | 11. | Computers |
5. | Current affairs | 12. | Polity |
6. | People in news | 13. | Portfolios |
7. | Important Schemes | 14. | Important days |
Best Book – Lucent or Kiran Prakashan
2. General Intelligence & Reasoning ( SSC CGL Reasoning Syllabus ) –
General Intelligence & Reasoning that can help you to score more in Tier-I. In this, only your intelligence is tested. Sometimes the questions are a bit tricky, but if you studied it in deep, you can do good score.
General Intelligence & Reasoning can have verbal & non-verbal questions and all the questions will be related from the topics given below.
1. | Analogies | 21. | Coding & decoding |
2. | Similarities & differences | 22. | Social intelligence |
3. | Problem solving | 23. | Critical thinking |
4. | Analysis | 24. | Emotional intelligence |
5. | Judgment | 25. | Embedded figures |
6. | Spatial orientation | 26. | Date & city matching |
7. | Space visualization | 27. | Classification of centre codes/roll numbers |
8. | Visual memory | 28. | Venn diagrams |
9. | Decision making | 29. | Drawing inferences |
10. | Discrimination | 30. | Folding & un-folding |
11. | Observation | 31. | Address matching |
12. | Arithmetical reasoning & figural classification | 32. | Indexing |
13. | Relationship concepts | 33. | Word building |
14. | Arithmetic number series | 34. | Numerical & symbolic operations |
15. | Non-verbal series | 35. | Trends |
16. | Statement conclusion | 36. | Space orientation |
17. | Syllogistic reasoning | 37. | Figural, semantic & number series |
18. | Semantic analogy | 38. | Symbolic/number analogy |
19. | Figural analogy | 39. | Semantic classification |
20. | Figural classification | 40. | Symbolic/number classification |
Best Book – Any of Arihant books
3. Quantitative Aptitude ( SSC CGL Maths Syllabus ) –
Quantitative attitude is for testing ability of appropriate use of numbers and number sense of the candidate.
The questions, which are asked in Quantitative Aptitude are related to these topics given below in the table.
1. | Number System | 18. | Circle, Cord & Tangent |
2. | Fractions & Decimals | 19. | Applications Of Algebraic Formulas |
3. | Ratio & Proportion | 20. | Tabulation |
4. | Average | 21. | Line- Graph |
5. | Square & Cube Roots | 22. | Histogram |
6. | Percentage | 23. | Prism & Piramid |
7. | Interest | 24. | Volume |
8. | Profit & Loss | 25. | Area |
9. | Discount | 26. | Boat & Stream |
10. | Time & Work | 27. | Train |
11. | Time & Distance | 30. | Pipe & Cistern |
12. | Mixer & Alligation | 31. | Age Relation |
13. | Partnership Business | 32. | HCF & LCM |
14. | Geometry | 33. | Simplification |
15. | Triangle | 34. | Indices & Surds |
16. | Mensuration | 35. | Trigonometry |
17. | Bar-Diagram & Pie-Chart | 36. | Graphs Of Linear Equation |
Best Book – SD Yadav or RS Agarwal
4. English Comprehension ( SSC CGL English Syllabus ) –
This section takes place to know the candidate’s ability to understand English correctly.
Topics, which are asked in this section, arranged below.
1. | Idioms & Phrases | 7. | Spelling test & Spotting errors |
2. | One word substitution | 8. | Sentence improvement |
3. | Synonyms | 9. | Sentence completion |
4. | antonyms | 10. | Reading comprehension |
Best Book – Neetu Singh I & II
Read all about SSC such as its full form, salary, qualification etc.
2. SSC CGL Syllabus for Tier 2 –
After qualifying Tier-I, you’ll be eligible for Tier-II. Even in the second phase ( Tier-II ) of the exam, you get to find multiple choice questions.
It means, you have to choose one as right answer out of the given four.
Tier-II is conducted online, which comprises four papers. Actually, Paper-l & ll are compulsory for all the posts, but paper-lll & lV are for some special posts.
Moreover, Paper-I, lll & IV have different negative markings from Paper-ll.
In other words, it can be said that Paper-l, lll & IV include 0.50 marks to be deducted for each wrong answer whereas this value is 0.25 marks for Paper-ll.
Well, we told you that time duration is for Tier-ll is 2 hours for every paper, but for visually handicapped candidates, this duration is 2 hours & 40 minutes.
For your convenience, I designed a table related to papers, questions, marks & timing for Tier-ll.
S.N | Papers | No Of Questions | Total Marks | Time Duration |
1. | Quantitative Ability | 100 | 200 | 2 Hours |
2. | English Language & Comprehension | 200 | 200 | 2 Hours |
3. | Statistics | 100 | 200 | 2 Hours |
4. | General Studies ( Finance & Economics ) | 100 | 200 | 2 Hours |
1. Quantitative Ability ( Paper-l )
Here, the questions ( 100 questions ) related to quantitative ability are slightly higher in numbers. All of these topics are as same as Quantitative Aptitude.
A list is given below, which shows all the topics associated with this paper.
1. | Number system | 18. | Circle, cord & tangent |
2. | Fractions & decimals | 19. | Applications of algebraic formulas |
3. | Ratio & proportion | 20. | Tabulation |
4. | Average | 21. | Line-graph |
5. | Square & cube roots | 22. | Histogram |
6. | Percentage | 23. | Prism & piramid |
7. | Interest | 24. | Volume |
8. | Profit & loss | 25. | Area |
9. | Discount | 26. | Boat & stream |
10. | Time & work | 27. | Train |
11. | Time & distance | 28. | Pipe & cistern |
12. | Mixer & alligation | 29. | Age relation |
13. | Partnership business | 30. | HCF & LCM |
14. | Geometry | 31. | Simplification |
15. | Triangle | 32. | Indices & surds |
16. | Mensuration | 33. | Trigonometry |
17. | Bar-diagram & Pie-chart | 34. | Graphs of linear equation |
I hope, you must have understood SSC CGL Maths syllabus of second phase.
2. English Language & Comprehension ( Paper-ll )
This paper is taken place to ensure how much knowledge the candidates have about English Grammar. We’ve discussed a list that contains topics which should be studied.
1. | Synonyms | 8. | Active/Passive voice |
2. | Antonyms | 9. | Direct & indirect |
3. | Spotting errors & Missspelled words | 10. | Shuffling of sentence parts |
4. | Fill in the blanks | 11. | Shuffling of sentences in a passage |
5. | Idioms & phrases | 12. | Close passage |
6. | One word substitution | 13. | Comprehension passage |
7. | Improvement of sentences | 14 | Cloze passage |
3. Statistics ( Paper-lll )
As we already told you that Paper-lll is not compulsory for all the candidates, but for getting a particular post of Junior Statistical Officer ( JSO ), it’s compulsory.
The topics related to this paper are also shown in the table below, which you have to study well.
1. | Measures of central tendency |
2. | Measures of dispersion |
3. | Collection, classification and presentation of statistical data |
4. | Probability theory |
5. | Correlation & regression |
6. | Moments, skewness & kurtosis |
7. | Statistical inference |
8. | Sampling theory |
9. | Index numbers |
10. | Random variable & probability distributions |
11. | Analysis of variance |
12. | Time series analysis |
4. General Studies – Finance & Economics ( Paper-IV )
Even Paper-IV isn’t for all the candidates, it’s only for those candidates who want some special posts like Assistant Audit Officer & Assistant Account Officer.
Paper-IV contains two parts ( Part A & Part B ). The questions asked in Part A will be related to Finance & Accounts whereas Part B has those questions, which are related to Economics & Governance.
Both the papers have the total number of questions 100 for 2 hours of time period.
Understand property, see the table below.
Paper | Subject | Total Marks |
Part A | Finance & Accounts | 80 |
Part B | Economics & Governance | 120 |
S.N | Part A Topics | Part B Topics |
1. | Limitations of financial accounting | Finance commission |
2. | Nature & Scope | Comptroller & auditor general of India |
3. | Accounting principles | Theory of demand & supply |
4. | Basic concept & convention | Theory of production & cost |
5. | Bank reconciliation | Basic concept of economics & introduction to micro economics |
6. | Ledgers | Forms of market & price determination in different markets |
7. | Single & double entry | Indian economy |
8. | Books of original entry | Money & Banking |
9. | Journal | Role of information & technology in governance |
10. | Manufactiring | Privatisation |
11. | Trial Balance, | Globalization |
12. | Rectification of errors | Disinvestment |
13. | Bills of exchange | Liberalisation |
14. | Valuation of inventories | Economic reforms in India |
There are other left topics in Part A such as Depreciation accounting & Self balancing ledgers etc. Moreover, I’ll say for covering all topics of Part A, you should study all about financial and basic concepts of accounting.
3. SSC CGL Syllabus for Tier 3 –
After qualifying Tier-II, you’ll enter Tier-III. Tier-III is a descriptive exam, which is based on 10+2 level. The mode of exam is offline. It means, you’re provided by a pen & paper.
It’s conducted in two languages ( English & Hindi ). As per your chosen language, you’ll proceed in this Tier.
Time duration of Tier-lll is only 60 minutes for 100 questions.
But, if there’s someone who has visual problems or is visually handicapped, it’s given a more time of 20 minutes i.e. such people can have total 80 minutes.
.
Subjects | Total Marks | Timing | Qualifying Percentage |
Essay writing, Letter, Application, Précis etc. | 100 | 60 minutes | 33% at least |
4. SSC CGL Syllabus for Tier 4 –
Now, here is the last one ( Tier-IV ), It’s all about skill test for some specific posts and document verification.
If you wanna choose the post of tax assistants ( Central excise & Income tax ), you’ll have to face a typing test, which includes 8,000 key depression per hour or 2,000 key depression for 15 minutes.
Document Verification ( DV ) –
Document verification is the final step of SSC CGL.
Here, you should bring your all the documents related to matriculation/secondary certificates, educational qualification, caste certificate, certificate of relaxation time period if any etc.
That’s it.
How To Prepare for SSC CGL –

After knowing the SSC CGL Syllabus for tier 1, 2, 3 & 4, if you’re thinking of how to prepare for SSC CGL, I’d say stay connected.
Well, there’s no shortcut to crack the exam, but definitely, you can do it with your hard work.
In my opinion, this exam will take a short period of time if you do high efforts regularly up to 7 or 8 months.
This specific time will cover everything needed to qualify for this exam.
Usually, students are a bit confused about time management.
They always think about how to manage time. Now, don’t worry I’m here to explain how to manage it.
Firstly, find out how much the total time you have in a day in which you remain free.
Now, out of the total time, set aside at least seven hours in which no one disturbs you.
Keep one thing in your mind that these seven hours should be the actual seven hours for studying.
In seven hours, you will have to study every subject for 2 hours except Reasoning.
Because, Reasoning is a subject that can be covered by studying only one hour everyday.
You have to continue with this timetable for 7 to 8 months. I’m promising you that when your time is up, you’ll say, yes I did.
This was a quick way to prepare for SSC CGL without any pressure.
Thank you.