State PSC GK CSAT Current Affairs Starter Course

Exam Pattern, Scoring and Attempt Strategy

This chapter explains how a State PSC preliminary examination is built and scored, and turns the scoring rules into an attempt policy for the examination hall. The MPPSC 2026 pattern comes from the commission's official exam plan. Figures for UPPSC, BPSC, WBCS, HPSC and OPSC are labelled as reported, because their official notices could not be retrieved in this edition.

KarmSakha preparation topics covered

• Three stages and what the prelims decides
• The MPPSC 2026 pattern: papers, marks, duration and the answer-key rules
• Reported patterns for UPPSC, BPSC, WBCS, HPSC and OPSC, and where sources conflict
• Negative marking: (3R minus W), the one-third and one-quarter schemes
• Blind guesses, elimination and the 25 per cent break-even
• Qualifying minimums, category cut-offs and the merit order
• Time per question and a checkpoint plan for a 100-item paper
• Answer-key rules: wrong key, several correct options, deleted questions, Hindi-English differences

Three stages and what the prelims decides

The MPPSC State Service Examination 2026 exam plan, dated 5 January 2026, sets three successive stages: a preliminary examination of objective questions answered on an OMR-based sheet, a written main examination, and an interview. The plan calls the preliminary examination an eligibility test. Its marks decide which candidates may enter the Mains, and the final list is built only from Mains and interview marks. Because of that, no prelims score can compensate for a weak Mains, and the prelims is a screen rather than the final ranking.

The plan caps the Mains shortlist at 20 times the category-wise number of vacancies, applied category by category. Candidates who tie on marks with the last shortlisted candidate in their category are also declared eligible, so the final number can exceed the cap at a tie. Only candidates whom the commission declares qualified in prelims under the notification may enter the Mains, so a prelims rank decides in practice whether a candidate reaches the Mains at all.

The prelims decides three things, in order. First, each paper must reach a category minimum, which works as a pass-fail gate. Second, the marks of Paper I form the merit order from which the Mains shortlist is cut. Third, once the shortlist is set, the prelims marks play no further part, and the Mains and interview marks alone build the final list. Read the first as a gate, the second as a rank, and the third as the point where the prelims stops mattering.

The plan also fixes a practical rule for the answer sheet. Item 4(1) requires the candidate to darken one circle for each question, the circle of the option believed correct. The plan does not say what happens when more than one circle is darkened on a question, so the candidate instructions and the notice must be read on that point. The rule covers all 200 questions across the two papers, so the answer-sheet routine should be practised before the examination day.

The MPPSC 2026 pattern from the official exam plan

Item 2 of the plan sets two objective papers, both of equal weight. Paper I is Samanya Adhyayan, the General Studies paper. Paper II is Samanya Abhiruchi Parikshan, the General Aptitude Test. Each paper has 100 questions carrying 3 marks each, so each paper is worth 300 marks and the two together 600. Each paper lasts 2 hours. Item 4(1) gives four options, A to D, for each question, with exactly one correct, and the candidate darkens the circle of a single option.

Item 4(2) sets the marking as (3R minus W), where R is the number of correct answers and W the number of wrong answers. Each correct answer adds 3 marks, each wrong answer takes away 1, and an unattempted question scores nothing. A single correct answer therefore outweighs a single wrong answer three to one, and that ratio is the foundation of the attempt policy in Section 4.

Item 4(5) and the six answer-key notes that follow it govern what happens after the examination. The provisional key is published on the commission's website, and objections are accepted online within five days, with a per-question fee and a portal fee payable. The final key then follows four rules. A question with a wrong key answer, where another option is correct, is corrected. A question with more than one correct option has every correct option accepted. A question with no correct option is deleted, and every candidate present receives full marks for it. Where the Hindi and English translations differ, only the Hindi translation is valid.

Reported patterns for UPPSC, BPSC, WBCS, HPSC and OPSC

The figures for the other five commissions are not official in this edition, because their notices were not retrievable on 8 October 2026. The BPSC and HPSC websites returned HTTP 503 errors, and no official preliminary scheme could be read for the other three. The figures below come from coaching and news reports and are labelled as reported. Each must be checked on the commission's own notice, and a figure that disagrees with the notice is wrong.

Read the Status column with three labels. Official means taken from the commission's own document, which applies only to MPPSC here. Reported means a figure from secondary sources, with no official text behind it in this edition. Conflicting means the sources read disagree, and the book does not choose between them. Even the rows without a recorded conflict rest on secondary reports, so none should be used without the notice in hand.

The conflicts are specific. BPSC reports describe a single objective General Studies paper of 150 marks in two hours; one older report splits it into 140 General Studies and 10 mental-ability questions within the same 150. WBCS reports disagree on whether the prelims is one paper of 200 questions or two papers of 200 marks each, and on whether the penalty is 0.25 or one-third. For HCS, a Haryana Government Extraordinary Gazette notification of 9 January 2026 (as reported) makes the prelims two objective papers of equal weight totalling 400 marks, which fits two marks on each of 100 questions per paper. Reports on the 26 April 2026 prelims, however, describe two 100-question, 100-mark papers with a 0.25 deduction, so the cycle from which the 400-mark scheme applies must be checked on the HPSC notice. OCS reports disagree on whether Paper I counts toward merit.

BPSC reports also describe an Option E in the 2026 cycle, a fifth bubble that marks a question as not attempted and scores zero. The same reports say a row left with no bubble filled is penalised one-third, like a wrong answer, so skipping a question means marking E. Because this rests on secondary reports alone, it must be confirmed in the notice. Reports gave 26 July 2026 (one shift, 12:00 to 2:00 pm) as the BPSC 72nd preliminary date; confirm any later schedule on bpsc.bihar.gov.in.