CG SET Syllabus and Exam Pattern (CG-SET26)

CG SET Updated: 03 Sep 2026

Syllabus

CG-SET26 is one day and two papers: Paper-I of 50 questions and 100 marks in 1 Hour, Paper-II of 100 questions and 200 marks in 2 Hour, both entirely multiple-choice — and the advertisement states there is no negative marking in either paper.

Open the Official Syllabus Page

The PDF opens on the official site. Every topic in it is explained in plain language below — you do not have to open the PDF to read the syllabus.

Compiled from the official syllabus · check it against the official link

Two papers on one exam day, and how the marks are built ↑

The Chhattisgarh State Eligibility Test is conducted by the Chhattisgarh Karmchari Chayan Mandal at Nava Raipur — the board formerly called Vyapam — which the state's higher education department and the UGC's NET Bureau have appointed as the state agency for CG-SET. The board publishes the syllabus for both papers on its own SET26 syllabus page at cgssb.cgstate.gov.in: one PDF for Paper-I, and a separate PDF for every Paper-II subject.

Everything below is taken from those syllabus PDFs, from the Vibhagiya Vistrit Vigyapan — the detailed advertisement issued by the Directorate of Higher Education — and from the board's Pariksha Nirdesh, the exam instructions. All of them are scanned documents, so they were read page by page and restated here in our own words. Nothing is copied and nothing is guessed.

Paper-I is the same for every candidate. Paper-II is the single subject you selected on your application form. The advertisement settles the format in one line: the SET has two papers and every paper contains only multiple-choice objective questions.

Two marks per question is the board's own figure for both papers, so the marks column above is not our multiplication. The only arithmetic on this page is that last row: the documents print 100 and 200, and 50 and 100, but never a combined total, so 300 marks and 150 questions are our addition and are labelled as such.

Paper	Marks	Questions	Duration	Sitting on exam day
Paper-I	100	50 — all compulsory	1 Hour	10:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.
Paper-II	200	100 — all compulsory	2 Hour	2:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.
Both papers together (our addition — the documents print no total)	300	150	—	One day

No negative marking, and the Top 6% rule that decides the result ↑

One line of the advertisement settles the question candidates ask first: no negative marking will be applied in the first paper or the second. A wrong answer costs nothing, which means an unattempted question and a wrong one are worth exactly the same — and that should change how you spend the last ten minutes of each paper.

Qualifying, however, is not a pass mark. The advertisement prints the criterion in English and calls it final and binding. It is a share of the field, applied on top of an aggregate floor.

What the advertisement states	What it means for you
No negative marking in Paper-I or in Paper-II	Nothing is deducted for a wrong answer. Leave nothing blank.
At least 40% aggregate marks in both the papers taken together — General Category	The floor is on the two papers added together, not on each paper separately.
At least 35% aggregate marks — SC, ST, OBC (Non Creamy Layer), PWD and Transgender	Same aggregate rule, lower floor.
TOP 6% of the appearing candidates who appear in Paper I & Paper II both	Crossing the floor is not enough by itself — the qualified list is cut at six per cent of those who actually sat both papers.
Declared qualified for eligibility for Assistant Professor, following the reservation policy of the State Government	What you win is eligibility, not an appointment.
If a printed question differs between English and Hindi, the English question is treated as final	When a question reads oddly in one language, check the other column before you answer.
Scribe facility for persons with disabilities follows the board's own published guidelines	Those guidelines are a separate circular on the board's website, not part of this advertisement.

Who may sit CG-SET26, and what qualifying gets you ↑

The eligibility clause is short and unusually strict on one point: the minimum percentage is not rounded off. A candidate half a mark short does not become a 55 per cent candidate, and the advertisement says so twice — once for the general minimum and once for the relaxed one.

There is no upper age limit at all. The test exists to certify eligibility for teaching posts in Chhattisgarh's colleges and state universities, and the advertisement names those posts precisely.

Condition	What the advertisement states
Qualification	A Master's degree or an equivalent examination from a recognised university
Minimum marks	At least 55 per cent — and the minimum 55 per cent will not be rounded off
Relaxed minimum	50 per cent for SC, ST, OBC (non-creamy layer), persons with disabilities and transgender candidates — also not rounded off
Still studying	Candidates appearing in the Master's or equivalent examination may sit, but must pass with the prescribed minimum within 2 years of the date of the SET result
Age limit	No upper age limit
Who gets the relaxation	Relaxation in marks and reservation benefits are for original and local residents of Chhattisgarh in those categories
Foreign or non-standard degrees	The candidate must satisfy themselves that the degree, diploma or certificate is equivalent to a Master's degree of a university recognised by the Association of Indian Universities
If there is a dispute	The provisions of the UGC SET guidelines 2023 apply
Posts the eligibility is for	Assistant Professor, Librarian and Sports Officer in the state's government and non-government colleges (aided and non-aided); Assistant Professor, Assistant Librarian and Assistant Director (Physical Education) in state universities
How to apply	Online only — manual, offline and posted applications are not accepted

Paper-I at a glance: ten units, five questions from each ↑

Paper-I is the General Paper on Teaching & Research Aptitude, and the syllabus PDF states its purpose before it lists a single topic: to assess the teaching and research capabilities of the candidate, and the cognitive abilities behind them — comprehension, analysis, evaluation, understanding the structure of arguments, and deductive and inductive reasoning. It also expects a general awareness of teaching and learning in higher education, and of the interaction between people, environment and natural resources.

The note printed at the end of that PDF is the most useful sentence in the whole document: five questions each carrying 2 marks are to be set from each module. Ten units at five questions each is exactly the 50 questions the advertisement's pattern table shows — so no unit outweighs another, and the one-entry Comprehension unit is worth the same as the seven-entry Logical Reasoning unit.

The third column below counts the entries the official list prints under each unit. That count is ours, not the board's: the PDF prints bullets, not numbers, and nowhere says how many entries a unit contains. The last column is the board's own note applied unit by unit.

Unit	Title as printed	Entries in the official list (our count)	Weight per the official note
Unit-I	Teaching Aptitude	6	5 questions, 10 marks
Unit-II	Research Aptitude	6	5 questions, 10 marks
Unit-III	Comprehension	1	5 questions, 10 marks
Unit-IV	Communication	4	5 questions, 10 marks
Unit-V	Mathematical Reasoning and Aptitude	3	5 questions, 10 marks
Unit-VI	Logical Reasoning	7	5 questions, 10 marks
Unit-VII	Data Interpretation	5	5 questions, 10 marks
Unit-VIII	Information and Communication Technology (ICT)	4	5 questions, 10 marks
Unit-IX	People, Development and Environment	7	5 questions, 10 marks
Unit-X	Higher Education System	6	5 questions, 10 marks
All ten units	—	49 (our count)	50 questions, 100 marks

At a glance

Conducting Body	Chhattisgarh Staff Selection Board
Post Name	Assistant Professor (eligibility test)
Official Website	cgssb.cgstate.gov.in
State	Chhattisgarh

Paper-I, Units I to V — every entry the official list prints ↑

The middle column is the board's own wording, entry by entry, in the order the syllabus prints it. The right column is ours: what that entry actually asks for and how to approach it. Units I to V hold 20 of the 49 entries.

Read the middle column first and treat the right column as a study note. Where the two disagree, the middle column is the exam.

Unit	Official syllabus entry	What it actually asks
Unit-I · Teaching Aptitude	Teaching: Concept, Objectives, Levels of teaching (Memory, Understanding and Reflective), Characteristics and basic requirements.	Definitions first. The three levels — memory, understanding, reflective — are asked as a ladder, so learn which kind of question or classroom activity belongs to each level. That single distinction carries most of the marks in this entry.
Unit-I · Teaching Aptitude	Learner's characteristics: Characteristics of adolescent and adult learners (Academic, Social, Emotional and Cognitive), Individual differences.	Adolescent learner against adult learner, across four heads. Questions usually describe a behaviour and ask which head and which learner it belongs to, so keep one clear example under each of the four.
Unit-I · Teaching Aptitude	Factors affecting teaching related to: Teacher, Learner, Support material, Instructional facilities, Learning environment and Institution.	A six-item list, and the exam treats it as a list — given a classroom situation, name the factor at work. Learn the six labels in order; an option that is not on this list is a distractor.
Unit-I · Teaching Aptitude	Methods of teaching in Institutions of higher learning: Teacher centred vs. Learner centred methods; Off-line vs. On-line methods (Swayam, Swayamprabha, MOOCs etc.).	Two pairs of opposites. The named platforms — Swayam, Swayamprabha, MOOCs — are factual questions: know who runs each one and what it delivers, because that is the easiest mark in the unit.
Unit-I · Teaching Aptitude	Teaching Support System: Traditional, Modern and ICT based.	A three-way classification. Be able to place any teaching aid — blackboard, projector, learning management system — into the right one of the three.
Unit-I · Teaching Aptitude	Evaluation Systems: Elements and Types of evaluation, Evaluation in Choice Based Credit System in Higher education, Computer based testing, Innovations in evaluation systems.	The heaviest entry in the unit. The Choice Based Credit System is asked on its mechanics — credits, choice, grading — not on its history, and computer based testing is usually asked as a comparison with the pen-and-paper exam.
Unit-II · Research Aptitude	Research: Meaning, Types, and Characteristics, Positivism and Post-positivistic approach to research.	Definitions plus one philosophy pair. Positivism against post-positivism is the part candidates skip and the part that gets asked — one line on what each assumes about objective truth is enough.
Unit-II · Research Aptitude	Methods of Research: Experimental, Descriptive, Historical, Qualitative and Quantitative methods.	Five methods, asked by matching. Given a short description of a study, name the method — that is the standard form of the question.
Unit-II · Research Aptitude	Steps of Research.	Here the sequence itself is the answer. Questions scramble the steps and ask for the correct order, so hold the chain from choosing a problem to writing the report.
Unit-II · Research Aptitude	Thesis and Article writing: Format and styles of referencing.	Referencing styles are named in the options, and the question is usually which style a given citation belongs to. Learn the shape of each style rather than the rules behind it.
Unit-II · Research Aptitude	Application of ICT in research.	Tools, not theory: plagiarism checkers, reference managers, statistical packages, online databases. Know what each category is for.
Unit-II · Research Aptitude	Research ethics.	Plagiarism, fabrication, informed consent, authorship. Most questions are situational — a short scenario, and which ethical rule it breaks.
Unit-III · Comprehension	A passage of text be given. Questions be asked from the passage to be answered.	The whole unit is one passage and the questions on it, and every answer is inside the passage. No outside knowledge is needed or rewarded — and by the official note this unit carries exactly the same weight as any other.
Unit-IV · Communication	Communication: Meaning, types and characteristics of communication.	Definitions again, and it is the list of types that gets tested — formal and informal, upward and downward, one-way and two-way. Keep the pairs straight.
Unit-IV · Communication	Effective communication: Verbal and Non-verbal, Inter-Cultural and group communications, Classroom communication.	Non-verbal cues and classroom communication are the two the paper favours, because both can be set as small situations instead of definitions.
Unit-IV · Communication	Barriers to effective communication.	A classification question: physical, semantic, psychological, organisational. Given an example of an exchange that failed, name the barrier.
Unit-IV · Communication	Mass-Media and Society.	The current-affairs end of the unit — the role of media, its effect on public opinion, and the regulatory names that go with it.
Unit-V · Mathematical Reasoning and Aptitude	Types of reasoning.	The umbrella entry — deductive, inductive, analogical, verbal, non-verbal. Treat it as the vocabulary for the two entries that follow it.
Unit-V · Mathematical Reasoning and Aptitude	Number series, Letter series, Codes and Relationships.	Pure practice, no theory. Series and coding questions are the fastest marks in Paper-I, and blood-relation questions are solved on paper with a diagram, not in the head.
Unit-V · Mathematical Reasoning and Aptitude	Mathematical Aptitude (Fraction, Time & Distance, Ratio, Proportion and Percentage, Profit and Loss, Interest and Discounting, Averages etc.).	School arithmetic, listed topic by topic. What is listed is the scope — no algebra, geometry or trigonometry is named in this entry.

Paper-I, Units VI to X — every entry the official list prints ↑

The remaining 29 entries, in the same form. Units VI and IX are the longest in the paper — seven entries each — but by the official note they are still worth five questions apiece, exactly like the single-entry Comprehension unit.

Unit	Official syllabus entry	What it actually asks
Unit-VI · Logical Reasoning	Understanding the structure of arguments: argument forms, structure of categorical propositions, Mood and Figure, Formal and Informal fallacies, Uses of language, Connotations and denotations of terms, Classical square of opposition.	The densest entry in Paper-I. Mood and Figure and the classical square of opposition are formal, learnable systems — build them as a table rather than reading prose about them.
Unit-VI · Logical Reasoning	Evaluating and distinguishing deductive and inductive reasoning.	One distinction, asked in both directions: name the type, or judge whether the conclusion actually follows.
Unit-VI · Logical Reasoning	Analogies.	Word-pair relations. The trick is to name the relation in your own words before you look at the options.
Unit-VI · Logical Reasoning	Venn diagram: Simple and multiple use for establishing validity of arguments.	Draw them. Syllogism questions that look hard in words become one-look questions once the circles are on paper.
Unit-VI · Logical Reasoning	Indian Logic: Means of knowledge.	The heading for the two entries below it — Indian epistemology, asked in its Sanskrit terms with the English glosses the syllabus itself prints.
Unit-VI · Logical Reasoning	Pramanas: Pratyaksha (Perception), Anumana (Inference), Upamana (Comparison), Shabda (Verbal testimony), Arthapatti (Implication) and Anupalabddhi (Non-apprehension).	Six pramanas with their English meanings, printed in the syllabus itself. Learn each with one example; the standard question gives an example and asks which pramana it is.
Unit-VI · Logical Reasoning	Structure and kinds of Anumana (inference), Vyapti (invariable relation), Hetvabhasas (fallacies of inference).	The mechanics of inference. Hetvabhasas is the list of fallacies, and fallacy names are the most-asked part of this unit's Indian-logic half.
Unit-VII · Data Interpretation	Sources, acquisition and classification of Data.	Primary against secondary, and the heads under which data is classified. Definition level, nothing more.
Unit-VII · Data Interpretation	Quantitative and Qualitative Data.	One distinction, plus the scales of measurement that usually ride along with it.
Unit-VII · Data Interpretation	Graphical representation (Bar-chart, Histograms, Pie-chart, Table-chart and Line-chart) and mapping of Data.	Five named chart types. Questions show a chart and ask you to read a value or a trend off it, so practise reading charts, not drawing them.
Unit-VII · Data Interpretation	Data Interpretation.	The calculation half of the unit — percentages, ratios and averages taken off a table or a chart under time pressure.
Unit-VII · Data Interpretation	Data and Governance.	Where the unit turns current: open data, e-governance portals, and the use of data in policy.
Unit-VIII · Information and Communication Technology (ICT)	ICT: General abbreviations and terminology.	Pure recall, and reliably asked. Full forms are worth a mark each and cost nothing to learn.
Unit-VIII · Information and Communication Technology (ICT)	Basics of Internet, Intranet, E-mail, Audio and Video-conferencing.	Definitions and differences, at the level of a first computer course.
Unit-VIII · Information and Communication Technology (ICT)	Digital initiatives in higher education.	Named government platforms and what each one does — the same family as Swayam in Unit-I.
Unit-VIII · Information and Communication Technology (ICT)	ICT and Governance.	e-governance as a concept, plus the flagship names. Its overlap with Data and Governance in Unit-VII is in the official list itself.
Unit-IX · People, Development and Environment	Development and environment: Millennium development and Sustainable development goals.	The goals are asked by number and by name, so learn the count and the headline goals instead of reading all of them end to end.
Unit-IX · People, Development and Environment	Human and environment interaction: Anthropogenic activities and their impacts on environment.	The word to know here is anthropogenic — human-caused. Questions pair an activity with the impact it produces.
Unit-IX · People, Development and Environment	Environmental issues: Local, Regional and Global; Air pollution, Water pollution, Soil pollution, Noise pollution, Waste (solid, liquid, biomedical, hazardous, electronic), Climate change and its Socio-Economic and Political dimensions.	The longest entry in the unit and the most asked. Waste is listed in five named kinds and pollution in four — those lists are the question bank.
Unit-IX · People, Development and Environment	Impacts of pollutants on human health.	Pollutant to disease, one to one. Learn the well-known pairs and you have this entry.
Unit-IX · People, Development and Environment	Natural and energy resources: Solar, Wind, Soil, Hydro, Geothermal, Biomass, Nuclear and Forests.	Eight named resources; the usual question is the renewable against non-renewable classification.
Unit-IX · People, Development and Environment	Natural hazards and disasters: Mitigation strategies.	Hazard types, and the vocabulary of disaster management — preparedness, mitigation, response, recovery.
Unit-IX · People, Development and Environment	Environmental Protection Act (1986), National Action Plan on Climate Change, International agreements/efforts -Montreal Protocol, Rio Summit, Convention on Biodiversity, Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement, International Solar Alliance.	A list of named agreements, one of them with its year printed. This is the most factual entry in Paper-I; a one-line table of agreement, year and subject covers it completely.
Unit-X · Higher Education System	Institutions of higher learning and education in ancient India.	The ancient centres of learning, asked by location and by period.
Unit-X · Higher Education System	Evolution of higher learning and research in Post Independence India.	Commissions, committees and the policies that followed them — this is the entry where dates matter most.
Unit-X · Higher Education System	Oriental, Conventional and Non-conventional learning programmes in India.	A three-way classification; distance and open learning sit under non-conventional.
Unit-X · Higher Education System	Professional, Technical and Skill Based education.	Regulator names belong here — the councils that govern professional and technical courses.
Unit-X · Higher Education System	Value education and environmental education.	Concept level, and it deliberately repeats ideas already met in Unit-IX.
Unit-X · Higher Education System	Policies, Governance, and Administration.	Where the current national education policy is examined, along with the bodies that actually run higher education.

Paper-II: all 30 subjects, and which of them have a Hindi paper ↑

Paper-II is written on one subject only — the one you chose while filling the application form. The advertisement lists thirty subjects and subject groups recommended by the UGC, and the board publishes a separate syllabus PDF for each of them on the same page.

Depth varies enormously between them, so do not judge your subject by another one. The English syllabus is a single page of ten unit headings; Political Science runs to six pages of named concepts and thinkers. Open your own subject's PDF before you plan anything.

20 of the 30 subjects carry both a Hindi and an English PDF; 10 carry a single PDF. That split is our count off the page's own links on 2 September 2026, not a figure the board publishes, and it is worth re-checking, because files are added to this page as they become ready. Where only one PDF exists it is in the subject's own working language — the Hindi subject's PDF is in Hindi, and the English, Physical Sciences and Performing Arts PDFs we opened are in English.

#	Paper-II subject	Syllabus PDFs on the official page
1	Hindi	One PDF
2	English	One PDF
3	Political Science	Hindi and English
4	Economics	Hindi and English
5	Sociology	Hindi and English
6	History	Hindi and English
7	Geography	Hindi and English
8	Physical Sciences	One PDF
9	Mathematical Sciences	One PDF
10	Chemical Sciences	One PDF
11	Life Sciences	One PDF
12	Computer Science & Applications	One PDF
13	Commerce	Hindi and English
14	Law	Hindi and English
15	Sanskrit	Hindi and English
16	Psychology	Hindi and English
17	Library and Information Science	Hindi and English
18	Physical Education	Hindi and English
19	Home Science	Hindi and English
20	Earth, Atmospheric, Ocean and Planetary Sciences	One PDF
21	Anthropology	Hindi and English
22	Music	Hindi and English
23	Performing Arts - Dance, Drama, Theatre	One PDF
24	Fine Art & Sculpture (Visual Arts)	One PDF
25	Yoga	Hindi and English
26	Public Administration	Hindi and English
27	Defence and Strategic Studies	Hindi and English
28	Philosophy	Hindi and English
29	Management	Hindi and English
30	Mass Communication & Journalism	Hindi and English

Four subjects whose Paper-II splits into a compulsory part and a choice ↑

For most subjects Paper-II is one hundred questions from one syllabus. For four of them the advertisement fixes a different structure, and it prints the question split explicitly. If your subject is one of these four, the split below is part of your syllabus.

The choice is made on the application form, not in the exam hall. The advertisement is explicit that the code facility for selecting the optional part will not be available on the OMR sheet on the day of the exam — so a candidate who picked the wrong option while applying cannot switch to the other one.

Subject	Compulsory part	Optional part — you choose one
Mathematical Sciences	Paper-2 (Unit 1) — 60 questions, compulsory for every candidate	Unit 2 & 3 — 40 questions, only for candidates who chose Mathematics. Unit 4 — 40 questions, only for candidates who chose Statistics.
Earth, Atmospheric, Ocean and Planetary Sciences	Paper-2 (PART A) — 60 questions, compulsory for every candidate	PART B — 40 questions from any one of Geology, Physical Geography, Geophysics, Meteorology or Ocean Sciences
Performing Arts — Dance, Drama, Theatre	Paper-2, Units I, II, III, IV and V — 50 questions, compulsory for every candidate	Units VI, VII, VIII, IX and X — 50 questions, from either Dance, or Drama and Theatre
Music	Paper-2, Units I, II, III and IV — 40 questions, compulsory for every candidate	Units V, VI, VII, VIII, IX and X — 60 questions, from any one of four options the advertisement prints in Hindi only: Hindustani Sangeet, Karnatak Sangeet, Avanaddh Vadya and Rabindra Sangeet

Exam day, fees and the objection window ↑

These come from the board's Pariksha Nirdesh for SET26 rather than from the syllabus PDFs. The exam date and the admit-card date are printed there as probable dates, not fixed ones, and the advertisement separately reserves the right to postpone or cancel the test at any time without giving a reason.

Note the gap between the paper and the sitting. Paper-I is one hour long inside a sitting timed from 10:00 to 11:15, and Paper-II is two hours inside a sitting from 2:00 to 4:15. Neither document explains the extra quarter of an hour, so neither will we — plan on being in your seat for the full sitting.

Item	As the exam instructions state it
Online application opens	23.07.2026 (Thursday)
Last date to apply	17.08.2026 (Monday), up to 5:00 p.m.
Correction window	18.08.2026 to 20.08.2026, up to 5:00 p.m.
Probable exam date	04.10.2026 (Sunday)
Paper-I sitting	10:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.
Paper-II sitting	2:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.
Admit card, probable date	28.09.2026 (Monday) on the board's website, about 07 days before the exam. It is downloaded by the candidate and is not posted.
Exam centres	10 district headquarters
Reporting time	At least 2 hours before the start time
Fee — General	Rs. 350.00
Fee — Other Backward Class	Rs. 250.00
Fee — SC / ST / persons with disabilities	Rs. 200.00
Fee refund	After the result is declared, local residents of Chhattisgarh who actually appear get the examination fee returned to the same bank account it was paid from
Objection against a model answer	Rs. 50 per question, online. An objection filed without the fee is not accepted.
Helpline	0771-2972780

What these documents do not tell you — and we will not invent ↑

A syllabus defines scope. It does not answer every question a candidate has, and naming the gaps is more useful than filling them with a confident guess.

For each of the following, the board's own website and the documents linked from it are the only sources worth trusting.

How many questions come from each Paper-II unit. Paper-I is settled by the official note — five per module — but none of the subject syllabi we opened carries a unit-wise question count, apart from the four subjects whose split the advertisement fixes.
Any cut-off marks. The qualifying rule is a share of the field on top of an aggregate floor; the actual cut-off depends on how many candidates appear and how they score, and exists only after the result.
Which cities the exam runs in. The instructions say 10 district headquarters and stop there.
Whether the schedule will hold. Both the exam date and the admit-card date are printed as probable dates, and the advertisement reserves the right to postpone or cancel the examination at any time without stating a reason.
Any book list. The board prescribes a syllabus, not a reading list — a topic list is not a set of textbooks.
Why each sitting runs fifteen minutes longer than the paper's stated duration.
How the Hindi and English editions of a syllabus differ in wording. Both are published for most subjects; the advertisement's own rule is that where a printed question differs between the two languages, the English question is final.

Important Links

View Syllabus / Notification CG Official Website

Official source: Official website ↗. Always confirm on the official website before acting on it.