How I Scored 181 In SSC CGL Tier 1

Combined Graduate Level Examination (CGLE) is one of the examinations conducted by the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), for recruitment to the posts of Inspectors, Assistant Section Officers, Auditors, Junior Accountants, Tax Assistants, etc. in various ministries or departments working with the Government of India offices. I scored 598 out of 700 and was able to achieve an All India Rank of 912 in SSC CGL 2018 in my first attempt. My tier 1 score was 181 out of 200. I am currently working as Inspector of Customs (Preventive Officer) at Custom House, Cochin.

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My SSC CGL Exam Preparation

My SSC CGL preparation journey started when I enrolled myself at Kisco Career Heights, Pala in July 2018. But to get a head start on other students in my class, I had started practising English vocabulary and basic mathematics questions two months prior to joining the institute. Throughout my preparation, I tried to make sure that I was ahead of my peers, so as to crack the exam in the first attempt itself. So, right after my classes at the institute, I used to study at a nearby library till night and practice previous years’ questions and go through the class notes provided by the institute.

SSC CGL Preparation Strategy And Materials Used

1. General Intelligence/Reasoning (GI/R)

The first stage of SSC CGL (Tier 1) consists of 25 questions of General Intelligence and Reasoning (GI/ R). I learned GI/ R topics from the notes provided from the institute and YouTube/ Google. For increasing the accuracy and speed, I mainly depended on mock tests and sectional tests by online exam preparation sites like Testbook. Attempting the mock tests has been vital in developing my own shortcuts and techniques in the GI/ R section.

2. General Awareness (GA)

General Awareness also consists of 25 questions in SSC CGL Tier 1. The questions asked from GA will be a mix of Static GA as well as Current affairs. Static GA can be covered from Lucent’s GK book. If aspirants find Lucent’s GK to be too hard to study, they may opt for learning static GA from previous year questions. Relying solely on SSC CGL previous year questions for Static GK will not fetch you great marks, but will be able to help you score decent marks. For Current Affairs SSC CGL preparation, I mainly relied on free monthly current affairs pdfs/videos by online channels like GKToday, StudyIQ etc. I covered Current Affairs of the last six months prior to the Tier 1 examination. Also, further static GA and current affairs questions were learnt from the online mock tests.

3. Quantitative Aptitude (QA)

Same as above mentioned sections, Quantitative Aptitude (QA) also consists of 25 questions of 2 marks each. As Tier 2 of SSC CGL also consists of 100 questions of QA, I gave a slight weightage to SSC CGL QA preparation compared to other sections. The institute where I prepared for the exam had good mentors for mathematics and they were able to help me understand the concept of various questions. For covering basic mathematics and to increase speed and accuracy, I heavily relied on SSC Mathematics Solved Papers by Kiran’s Publications, which contained almost 8,000 previous year questions from various topics.

I practised every question in that book twice. When I practised it for the first time, I attempted every question and searched online and other sources to find a shortcut or a technique to solve that question. Then I used to note down the question numbers of the questions which I found difficult on the top of the page. On practising the second time, I attempted only the questions which I had already noted on the top of the page, thus saving time. I also depended on offline mocks provided by the institute and online mocks as well as live weekly mocks to improve myself and to assess my performance for SSC CGL preparation.

4. English Comprehension

English Comprehension was one of my favourite sections among the four sections. As Tier 2 of SSC CGL consists of 200 questions of English Comprehension, I gave a slight weightage to English Comprehension, just like I did for QA preparation. For English vocabulary, I used Word Power made Easy by Norman Lewis, and for learning one-word substitutions, and synonyms, antonyms, idioms and phrases, I used General English by SP Bakshi. To cover more topics in limited time, I recorded all the vocabularies, idioms, synonyms, one-word substitutions, antonyms etc. in my phone and I used to play it whenever I used to get free time. For covering grammar, I relied on English for General Competitions by Neethu Singh. For practice, I used SSC English Language Solved Papers by Kiran’s Publications.

The above discussed are ssc cgl preparation tips for tier 1. The SSC CGL tier 2 tips are shared in the next article.