APPSC Group 2: what is the exam, and how do you prepare for it?

What is the plan for APPSC Group 2, in one look?

The APPSC Group 2 plan runs in three stretches (a stretch is one stage of the plan), and the first starts now, before the notification due on 15 October 2026. Each stretch starts on an event you can see and ends on a check. Rank comes from the 300 Mains marks, so the Mains base comes first and the Screening format second.

AP history comes first because it is static: in 2025 it had no question tied to current events. The Constitution and the economy follow, the two subjects the Screening leaves out, and science and technology closes the base, environment chapters first. Current affairs stays one read a month until the Screening date is announced, then narrows to the months before it: in the 2024 Screening, of the 21 current affairs questions we could date to an event, 20 came from the six months before the exam.

The pace is yours. Your hours depend on your job, your family and your health, and the fair comparison is with your own last month. Inside a stretch, subject order can move: if the economy fits a busy month better than AP history, swap them. What stays fixed is the direction, Mains base first, and the method for each chapter.

In past cycles, the gap from notification to Screening was short. Notification 11/2023 was issued on 7 December 2023, and its Screening was held 80 days later, on 25 February 2024; in the 2018 cycle the gap was 125 days, and the last Mains came on 23 February 2025, a year after its Screening. These gaps are history and set no 2026 date: the 2026 notification and the commission's web notes will, and the stretches move with them.

Where do I begin in the first two weeks?

Begin APPSC Group 2 with four steps in the first two weeks: read the syllabus of 27 April 2023, sit one past Mains paper cold, print the trackers, and start AP history at its first chapter. The cold paper, Paper 1 of February 2025, shows what a question looks like before you read a line of notes.

• Read the syllabus once, end to end. The official syllabus of 27 April 2023 takes one sitting. Mark the four Mains subjects and the five Screening blocks, so you know which reading serves which stage.
• Sit one past paper without preparing. Take Paper 1 of the February 2025 Mains from the previous papers page, and give it the full time. The score is beside the point. You are looking at how questions on AP history and the Constitution are framed, so you know what reading for them means.
• Print the trackers. The Group 2 plan tracker (తెలుగు) puts the three stretches, the chapter grid and the Screening blocks on paper. The four subject trackers, for AP history, the Constitution, the economy and science and technology, list each chapter with its past questions. All are free.
• Start AP history, chapter one. Use the chapter method further down, and do that chapter's past questions before you move on.

At the end of the second week, a few AP history chapters ticked for understanding and one Mains paper seen is a good start. If it took longer, set your own pace and keep the same order.

How do I study one chapter so it stays?

For APPSC Group 2, a chapter stays when you pull it back out of memory a few times, spaced apart. The method has five steps and runs the same way in all four Mains subjects of the 27 April 2023 syllabus: read to understand, say it back, do the past questions, tick the tracker, and come back to it later.

• Read to understand. One chapter in one sitting, following the argument from start to end.
• Close the book and say it back. Out loud or on paper, in your own words. The parts you cannot say back are the parts to reread.
• Do the past questions on that chapter. The subject trackers list them, and the booklets with keys are on the previous papers page.
• Tick the tracker for understanding. Tick when you can give the main points without looking.
• Come back in a week, then a month, then before the exam. A return means coming back to test the chapter from memory: a short recall and a few questions, with its own tick.

The returns feel slow in the first month and pay off from the second. Each one takes a fraction of the first reading, and a chapter recalled three times holds up in an exam hall better than one read three times. The same five steps work for the Screening parts. For mental ability, replace the say-back with a timed set of the same question type.

What does a week look like, and what if I work full time?

An APPSC Group 2 week under the 27 April 2023 syllabus has a shape you fit around your life: new chapters on some days, returns on others, mental ability a little most days, and one longer session at the weekend. With a full-time job, the weekday slot is short and fixed, and the weekend carries most of the new reading.

With a job, protect one slot on weekdays at a fixed time, before work or after dinner. A slot with a fixed time survives busy weeks better than one you look for each evening. When a week falls apart, keep the returns and the mental ability set, and move the new chapter to the weekend.

Expect the process to be long. In the last cycle, notification 11/2023 ran about 25.7 months from notification to the selection list, dated 27 January 2026 and published on 28 January. That list is provisional, subject to pending writ petitions. A job that pays for those months is part of the plan, and the week above is built to sit beside one.

What does each stage ask, and how is the rank decided?

APPSC Group 2 selects on the 300 marks of the Mains alone, under notification 11/2023, paragraph 15.2. The Screening of 150 marks decides who sits the Mains, and its marks are then set aside. A computer test of 100 marks in 60 minutes has to be cleared and adds nothing to rank. There is no interview.

A mark in the Mains moves your rank, and a mark in the Screening only takes you through a gate. That one fact sets the order of the plan above. The Mains floor of 40 percent is 120 marks out of 300 for an open-category candidate. Above it, selection goes by rank.

One third of a mark comes off for each wrong answer, in the Screening and in both Mains papers. In whole numbers, three wrong answers cancel one right one. Whether a guess pays depends on how often your guesses turn out right, and timed practice papers are where you count that.

The Screening of 25 February 2024 had 150 questions in 150 minutes, in five blocks of 30 marks: history, geography, Indian society, current affairs and mental ability.

The two stages barely overlap. Notification 11/2023 set the Screening syllabus in five sections with no polity or economy, and the February 2024 paper followed it. The February 2025 Mains had no geography, society or mental ability section.

So the Constitution and the economy, 150 of the 300 Mains marks, get studied for the Mains alone. And three Screening blocks, geography, Indian society and mental ability, get studied for the Screening alone.

The scheme has run once, and the 2026 notification may change it. The Group 2 syllabus map lists every Mains chapter in reading order, in the same division as the table.

What did the last papers reward?

In the APPSC Group 2 Mains of 23 February 2025, 267 of the 300 marks needed no news event, by our count of the official booklets. AP history had no question tied to current events. The Screening of 25 February 2024 moved away from Andhra Pradesh: 57 of 150 questions were AP-specific in 2019, and 7 of 131 readable ones in 2024.

• The Mains is mostly a static exam, so the base can be built well before any exam date.
• Science and technology in 2025 was mostly environment, so those chapters come early inside that subject.
• The economy is the one Mains subject that reaches into the news. The Union Budget 2025-26, presented on 1 February 2025, was asked in the Mains 22 days later.

In the Screening, the current affairs questions sat a median of 2 months behind the exam date. All of these counts come from one conduct of each paper in its present format, tagged by us. They show the shape of the last exam, and the 2026 papers are free to move away from it.

Which posts does APPSC Group 2 fill?

APPSC Group 2 fills 673 posts across twelve jobs in 2026, under G.O.Ms.No.81 of 22 August 2026. Deputy Tahsildar has 200 of them and Deputy Mandal Parishad Development Officer (Deputy MPDO) has 176, so these two make up more than half the list. The rest are accounts, Secretariat, tax, excise, co-operation, registration and municipal posts.

All twelve jobs come through one exam, so the preparation is the same whichever post you want. You choose among them later, when you state your post preferences. Group 2 posts start on a basic of 25,220 to 45,830 rupees a month under the 2022 pay scales, and a Deputy Tahsildar starts on 44,570. Each post's pay, work and scale are on the Group 2 posts and salary page.

The count can still move. It comes from the government order, and the commission's notification, due on 15 October 2026, will state the count you apply under. The last Group 2 notification, 11/2023, advertised 899 posts and was later revised to 905. The dates, age rule and pattern as they stand today are on the APPSC Group 2 exam page.

Group 2 is one of several APPSC exams open to graduates in 2026. If you are weighing it against Group 1, the Group 1 and Group 2 comparison and the Group 1 exam page set them side by side. The department posts, such as EO Grade-III, are separate single-stage exams.

Which materials do I need?

APPSC Group 2 preparation needs four things: the notification and the syllabus of 27 April 2023, the past papers with their official keys, one set of notes in chapter order, and the trackers. One set of notes per subject, read in order and tested on past questions, covers the syllabus. A second book on the same chapter mostly repeats the first.

Notification 11/2023 is the rulebook until the 2026 notification replaces it, and the syllabus of 27 April 2023 fixes what the papers cover. The February 2024 Screening and the February 2025 Mains, with their keys, are in the present format. Earlier Mains papers had three papers of 150 marks: use them for practice chapter by chapter, and take the exam's shape from the recent two.

Keep one set of notes in chapter order, the order of the syllabus map, one subject at a time. Print the plan tracker and the four subject trackers: a tick on paper shows at a glance what is done and what is due.

The official papers and keys come from the commission's own site, psc.ap.gov.in. The BLOOM tools page collects the free trackers and checkers in one place.

I studied in Telugu medium. Does that change my preparation?

APPSC Group 2 papers under notification 11/2023 are set in English and translated into Telugu in the same booklet, and the English version is the one used for valuation, under paragraph 12.5. You can read and answer from the Telugu. Where the two versions differ, the English one decides, so reading its line too pays off.

The method stays the same in either language. Read in the language you understand best, and say the chapter back in it. The change is in practice: do past papers with both versions in front of you, and keep a short list of English terms you had to look up. Terms from the Constitution and the economy come back paper after paper, so the list stops growing after a while.

If a question reads oddly in Telugu, read the English line before you answer. That habit costs a few seconds, and it matters most in questions with negatives or with statements to match.

The same holds for the Screening. Current affairs questions name schemes, bodies and places, and the Telugu version often keeps their English names. The monthly current affairs read is a good place to meet each name in both languages.

Questions people ask