SSC CHSL 2026 Exam Pattern: Tier-I, Tier-II, Typing Test, Normalisation

SSC CHSL is a two-tier computer-based exam. Tier-I is a 100-question screening test whose marks do not count in the final merit. Tier-II is one day in two sessions: two scored sections that decide the merit list, a qualifying computer test, and a typing or data-entry skill test. The 2026 notice added sectional timers to both tiers (the 2025 notice gave Tier-I one 60-minute block and each Tier-II section one hour), and since June 2025 multi-shift scores are normalised by a different method. This guide sets out the whole pattern from the notice — including the arithmetic several popular pages get wrong — and has a calculator for mock scores.

SSC Notice of CHSLE 2026.

Tier-I is qualifying only: it decides who goes to Tier-II, and its marks are not added to the final score. But it is not easy to qualify. The minimum marks in the notice are 30% for UR, 25% for OBC and EWS and 20% for others — 60, 50 and 40 out of 200 — while the actual LDC/JSA cut-off for UR in 2025 was 144.26 normalised marks (Tier-I result, 27.02.2026). The cut-off, not the minimum, is the real target.

Every Tier-II section must be qualified: “it will be mandatory for the candidates to qualify all the sections”. Sections I and II carry the same 30/25/20% minimums as Tier-I. The Computer Knowledge Test and the skill or typing test are pass-or-fail. In recent results the Computer Knowledge cut-off applied was 13.5 of 45 for UR, 11.25 for OBC and EWS, and 9 for others — exactly the 30/25/20% of 45.

The typing test is where many candidates who clear Tier-II lose the post. It is qualifying, so a fast typist gains nothing over a slow one who passes, but a candidate who misses 35 words a minute or makes too many errors is out regardless of merit. Hindi typists must use the Mangal font — practising on another Hindi layout or font and meeting Mangal on the day is a common and avoidable mistake.

Tier-I runs over many shifts with different question papers, so SSC normalises the scores. Since June 2025 it uses an equipercentile method. In SSC’s own explanation, a candidate who scored better than 80% of the examinees in one shift is matched to the candidate who scored better than 80% in another. Step by step: SSC computes each candidate’s percentile within their own shift; it then finds, for every shift, the raw score that sits at that percentile (interpolating where needed); and the normalised score is the average of those raw-score equivalents across all shifts. This replaced the method SSC had used since 2019.

Two practical consequences. Normalised cut-offs carry long decimals — the 2025 UR cut-off was 144.25858 — and a raw score in a hard shift can normalise upwards while the same raw score in an easy shift normalises down. Nothing a candidate does on the day changes their shift’s difficulty, so the only useful response is to maximise the raw score. Answer keys can be challenged for ₹50 a question (down from ₹100 in August 2025). Under SSC’s challenge guidelines of April 2026, an ambiguous question or one with no correct option is discarded and its marks added for every candidate, while a question with more than one correct option gives full marks for any correct choice; there is no re-evaluation.

If two candidates finish with the same Tier-II marks, SSC now ranks them by Section-I marks of Tier-II, then by Tier-I marks, then by date of birth with the older candidate first. This is the 2025 and 2026 rule. In 2024 the second tie-breaker was Section-II marks, and in 2023 it was date of birth and then the alphabetical order of names.