RRB NTPC Course 2026

RRB NTPC 2025-26: The Posts, the Two CBTs, the Skill Tests and a Scoring Strategy

RRB NTPC is not one examination but a chain of filters, and each filter rewards a different kind of preparation. The first computer-based test only decides who is allowed to sit the second; the second decides merit; and for six of the ten posts (the four typist posts, Station Master and Traffic Assistant) a separate typing test or aptitude test must also be qualified before that merit counts. A candidate who treats the whole thing as one undifferentiated syllabus spends months on the wrong things. This chapter reads the pattern directly from the two Centralised Employment Notices that govern the 2025-26 cycle — CEN 06/2025 for Graduate posts and CEN 07/2025 for Under Graduate posts — and turns every number in them into a decision you can act on: how many questions to attempt, when a guess is worth making under a one-third penalty, how many seconds each question can have, and which stage deserves which weeks of your preparation. Every pattern figure is cited to the paragraph of the notice it comes from. Where the notice is silent, this chapter says so rather than filling the gap with coaching-centre folklore.

KarmSakha preparation topics covered

• The two notices: CEN 06/2025 (six Graduate posts) and CEN 07/2025 (four Under Graduate posts), their pay levels and the qualification each demands
• The recruitment chain: 1st Stage CBT, 2nd Stage CBT, Computer Based Typing Skill Test or Computer Based Aptitude Test where applicable, Document Verification and Medical Examination
• 1st Stage CBT: 100 questions in 90 minutes (General Awareness 40, Mathematics 30, General Intelligence and Reasoning 30), screening only
• 2nd Stage CBT: 120 questions in 90 minutes (General Awareness 50, Mathematics 35, General Intelligence and Reasoning 35), the paper that sets merit
• Negative marking of one-third of a mark per wrong answer and what it does to attempts, guessing and elimination
• Minimum percentages for eligibility, shortlisting ratios (15 times, 8 times, 1:1) and the tie-break rule
• The Typing Skill Test (30 words per minute in English or 25 in Hindi) and the CBAT (T-score of 42 in every battery, 70:30 merit weighting)
• Document verification basics, time budgets per question and a study plan mapped to the chapters of this book

Two Notices, Ten Posts: What You Are Actually Applying For

The Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs) advertise Non-Technical Popular Categories in two separate Centralised Employment Notices. CEN 06/2025, published on 21 October 2025, covers six Graduate-level posts: Goods Train Manager, Senior Clerk cum Typist, Junior Accounts Assistant cum Typist, Chief Commercial cum Ticket Supervisor, Station Master and Traffic Assistant. CEN 07/2025, published on 28 October 2025, covers four Under Graduate posts: Commercial cum Ticket Clerk, Accounts Clerk cum Typist, Junior Clerk cum Typist and Trains Clerk. The two notices are drafted in parallel, so most of what follows applies to both, and the differences are flagged where they occur.

The qualification gap between the notices is the first thing to settle. For every Graduate post, Annexure A of CEN 06/2025 asks for a degree from a recognised university or its equivalent. For every Under Graduate post, Annexure A of CEN 07/2025 asks for the 12th (+2 stage) or its equivalent with not less than 50 per cent marks in aggregate, a condition that is not insisted upon for SC, ST, Persons with Benchmark Disability, Ex-servicemen, and candidates who hold a qualification higher than 12th. Both notices state that candidates awaiting the result of the qualifying examination are not eligible, so the qualification must be complete by the closing date of the application.

The typist posts in both notices carry an extra line in Annexure A: typing proficiency in English or Hindi on a computer is essential. That line is the reason those posts have a Computer Based Typing Skill Test. Station Master and Traffic Assistant instead carry the Computer Based Aptitude Test. Their medical standard is A-2, which they share with Goods Train Manager, and CEN 06/2025 bars candidates who have had LASIK or any other surgery to correct refractive error from every post with medical standard A-2 — so the bar applies to all three posts. If you are applying for one of those posts, read paragraph 3 of CEN 06/2025 and the Indian Railway Medical Manual chapter it cites before you invest months in preparation.

Pay levels matter for your preference order, because allotment follows merit and the options you exercise. The summary tables in paragraph 13.5 of CEN 06/2025 and paragraph 13.4 of CEN 07/2025 list the level in the 7th Central Pay Commission matrix for each post, reproduced in the table below together with the extra test each post carries. Age limits are reckoned as on 01.01.2026 in both notices; for the Graduate posts the age band is 18 to 33 years, with the category relaxations set out in paragraph 5.2. Check paragraph 5 of your own notice for the exact dates of birth that qualify.

The Recruitment Chain, Stage by Stage

Paragraph 13.0 of both notices lists the stages in order: 1st Stage Computer Based Test, 2nd Stage Computer Based Test, the Computer Based Typing Skill Test or the Computer Based Aptitude Test where the post requires one, and finally Document Verification and Medical Examination. Selection is made strictly on merit through these stages. Only one online application is allowed, to one RRB of your choice, and the post preferences you give in that application are final. Multiple applications lead to rejection of all of them, so the choice of RRB and the order of post preferences are the first strategic decisions you make, long before the first CBT.

The funnel narrows at fixed ratios, and knowing them tells you how much each stage actually filters. After the 1st Stage CBT, candidates are shortlisted for the 2nd Stage CBT at 15 times the community-wise vacancies of the posts notified against the RRB, on the basis of normalised marks, though Railways reserve the right to change this limit. For the typist posts and for Station Master and Traffic Assistant, candidates equal to eight times the community-wise vacancies are called for the Typing Skill Test or the CBAT on the basis of 2nd Stage CBT performance. Document verification is then called at one candidate per vacancy.

Two consequences follow. First, the 1st Stage CBT is genuinely a screening test: paragraph 13.1 calls it 'of screening nature', and its marks are used only to shortlist for the second stage. You do not need to top it; you need to clear the shortlist line for your community at your RRB. Second, the 2nd Stage CBT carries the weight of merit for every post, and for Station Master and Traffic Assistant it still contributes 70 per cent of the final merit even after the aptitude test. Hours of preparation should be distributed with that asymmetry in mind.

Normalisation is the third mechanism to understand. Both notices say that when a CBT is conducted in multiple sessions for the same syllabus, shortlisting at each stage is done on normalised marks. The notices do not publish the normalisation formula, so this book does not guess at it. What it means for you is simple: your raw score is adjusted relative to the difficulty of your shift, so the right response to a hard shift is not panic but steady accuracy, because everyone in your shift faced the same paper.

1st Stage CBT: The Screening Paper

Paragraph 13.1 of both notices gives the 1st Stage CBT as a single paper common to all notified posts of the notice: 90 minutes, 100 questions, each of one mark, drawn from General Awareness (40), Mathematics (30) and General Intelligence and Reasoning (30). Candidates eligible for a scribe get 120 minutes, which is the notice's rule of 20 minutes of compensatory time per hour applied to a 90-minute paper. The notice adds a line that many candidates overlook: the section-wise distribution is only indicative and there may be some variations in the actual question papers. Prepare for the balance, not for an exact count.

There is no sectional time limit written into the notice, which gives you control over the order in which you attempt sections. General Awareness questions are recognition questions: you either know the fact or you do not, and thinking longer rarely helps. That makes them the cheapest marks per second on the paper, and many candidates choose to clear them first, to bank marks before the calculation-heavy sections. The table below turns the counts into a time budget you can adapt; it gives General Awareness about a sixth of the time.

The standard of the paper is described in the notice as generally in conformity with the educational standards prescribed for the posts. In practice this means the Graduate and Under Graduate papers share the same syllabus heads but not necessarily the same depth, which is why this book marks harder examples. The Mathematics heads in the notice are school arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry and statistics (the notice fixes a class-10 level only for General Science), and the reasoning heads are the standard set of verbal and non-verbal question types; both are covered in chapters 2 to 5.

Minimum percentages of marks for eligibility are set out in the same paragraph: 40 per cent for UR and EWS, 30 per cent for OBC (non-creamy layer) and SC, and 25 per cent for ST, relaxable by 2 marks for PwBD candidates if there is a shortage of such candidates against the vacancies reserved for them. These are floors, not targets. The real hurdle is the 15-times shortlist for your community at your RRB, which is set by the competition in your shift and your RRB and is not published in advance.