The SSC GD syllabus is short. What makes it difficult is not breadth but pace: 80 questions in 60 minutes across four equally weighted parts, each of 20 questions and 40 marks.
That equal weighting matters more than most candidates act on. There is no bonus for being excellent at General Awareness if you are slow at Reasoning — each part is 40 marks, and the easiest marks on the paper are usually not in the section you enjoy most.
Part A — General Intelligence & Reasoning
The same handful of question types recur every year, which makes this the most trainable part of the paper.
- Analogies and classification (odd one out)
- Number and letter series
- Coding–decoding
- Blood relations
- Direction sense and distance
- Ranking and ordering
- Arithmetical reasoning
- Non-verbal: mirror and water images, paper folding, figure series, embedded figures, counting figures, cubes and dice
- Spatial visualisation and orientation, visual memory, observation, discrimination
Nothing here needs memorising. Once you can name the question type in three seconds, most of these take twenty seconds to solve.
Part B — General Knowledge & General Awareness
- History: Indus Valley, Vedic period, Mauryas, Guptas, Delhi Sultanate, Mughals, the freedom struggle
- Indian Constitution and polity: fundamental rights, articles, schedules, the three organs
- Geography: physical features, rivers, climate, boundary lines, states
- Economic scene: RBI, NITI Aayog, GST, taxation, budget basics
- General policy and scientific research
- Everyday science: vitamins and deficiency diseases, human body, gases and elements, basic physics
- Sports and culture
Polity is the most predictable scoring area here — the questions come from a small, stable pool and the answers do not change year to year. Current affairs is the opposite: it needs refreshing continuously, so treat it as maintenance rather than a topic you finish.
Part C — Elementary Mathematics
- Number systems, computation of whole numbers, decimals and fractions
- Fundamental arithmetical operations and simplification (BODMAS)
- Percentages
- Ratio and proportion
- Averages
- Profit and loss, discount
- Interest — simple and compound
- Time and distance, time and work
- Mensuration
There is no algebra beyond the basics, no trigonometry and no calculus. The difficulty is entirely speed: knowing that 12.5% is one-eighth turns a calculation into a two-second answer.
Part D — English or Hindi
You choose one. This part is a language test, so unlike the other three it cannot be sat in a regional language.
English topics: spot the error, fill in the blanks, synonyms and antonyms, spellings and misspelt words, idioms and phrases, one-word substitution, improvement of sentences, active and passive voice, direct and indirect narration, shuffling of sentences in a passage, cloze passage, comprehension.
Hindi topics: संधि, उपसर्ग, प्रत्यय, पर्यायवाची और विलोम शब्द, मुहावरे, समास, वाक्य-शुद्धि, वाच्य, क्रिया.
How to sequence your preparation
If you are starting from scratch, this order gets marks fastest:
- Reasoning — highest return per hour, needs no memory
- Maths — second highest, but needs daily practice to build speed
- English or Hindi — a narrow, fixed set of rules; drillable in a few weeks
- General Awareness — feels productive but has the lowest return per hour, because the pool is enormous and each fact appears rarely
Most candidates do this exactly backwards, spending months on General Awareness and arriving at the exam slow in Reasoning and Maths.
Before you plan around this
The syllabus has been stable, but vacancies, dates and relaxations change every cycle. Check the official SSC notification for the year you are applying in.