SSC CHSL Answer Key 2026: Provisional Key Process, Objection Rules & Marking Scheme

Exam Snapshot / परीक्षा अवलोकन

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Answer Key & Objection Window Highlights / उत्तर कुंजी मुख्य बिंदु

Raw Score Calculation Formula / प्राप्तांक गणना नियम

Answer Key Download & Challenge Instructions / निर्देश

SSC released the provisional answer keys for the previous CHSL cycle's Tier 1 (after the November 2025 exam) and Tier 2 (after the 10 April 2026 exam), and both objection windows have since closed. This page explains how the SSC CHSL answer key process works, for reference ahead of the still-awaited 2026 notification.

SSC's answer key process for the Combined Higher Secondary Level exam runs in two separate rounds, one for each tier, and both rounds for the previous — currently completed — 2025 cycle have already run their full course, from provisional release through the objection window and, ultimately, into the results that Tier 1 has already delivered and Tier 2 has not, as covered on this site's dedicated CHSL result page. It's worth walking through how the process worked for that cycle in some detail, because the same mechanics will almost certainly repeat once the delayed 2026 notification finally arrives and its own Tier 1 exam eventually takes place. After the Tier 1 CBT concluded across its many November 2025 shifts, SSC made the provisional Tier 1 answer key available through individual candidate login, paired with each candidate's personal response sheet and the exact question set used in their specific shift, letting candidates directly compare what they had marked against SSC's provisional key for their particular paper — a structure necessary because CHSL's Tier 1, like most large-scale SSC CBTs, runs multiple shifts with different question sets rather than one shared paper. A formal objection window followed, during which candidates who believed a specific question carried an incorrect, ambiguous or out-of-syllabus answer could submit a representation online for a fee of ₹100 per question challenged, a fee SSC refunds for any objection its expert panel ultimately upholds; objections submitted after the deadline, or through any channel other than the official portal, were not entertained. Once that window closed and SSC finalised the Tier 1 key internally, incorporating whatever accepted objections came out of the review, the Commission moved directly to computing and declaring the Tier 1 result on 27 February 2026, without issuing a separate standalone "final key" document — a pattern consistent with how SSC generally runs this exam. The exact same two-step rhythm then repeated for Tier 2 after the 10 April 2026 exam: a provisional key released through candidate login, a formal objection window with the same ₹100-per-question structure, and a final key used internally to compute whatever result eventually gets declared, rather than published separately. For candidates still trying to gauge their own standing from either of these already-closed windows, the underlying marking scheme is worth understanding precisely, since it differs meaningfully between the two tiers. Tier 1 is scored simply: 100 questions across four 25-question sections — English Language, General Intelligence, Quantitative Aptitude and General Awareness — each worth 2 marks, with a flat 0.5-mark deduction for every wrong answer and a maximum raw score of 200 across the 60-minute paper. Tier 2 is structured quite differently and this is where a lot of candidates get their expectations wrong: it runs across three sections with two modules apiece, split into two same-day sessions, with Section 1 covering Mathematical Abilities and Reasoning/General Intelligence, Section 2 covering English Language & Comprehension and General Awareness, and Section 3 covering a qualifying Computer Knowledge Test in its first module and a qualifying Skill Test or Typing Test in its second, depending on the specific post a candidate has applied for. Each objective question in Sections 1, 2 and Module I of Section 3 carries 3 marks with a full 1-mark deduction for every wrong answer — a considerably steeper negative-marking penalty than Tier 1's 0.5 mark — while Module II, the actual typing or skill test component, carries no scoring or negative marking at all because it is purely qualifying. Crucially, only Sections 1 and 2 count toward a candidate's final merit ranking; Section 3 in its entirety, both the Computer Knowledge module and the Skill/Typing module, functions as a qualifying hurdle that a candidate must clear but which adds nothing to their competitive score, meaning a candidate's actual rank depends entirely on accuracy across the first two sections rather than performance in the computer-knowledge or typing components, however well or poorly those go. With both answer key windows for the 2025 cycle now fully closed and the Tier 2 result still pending, there is genuinely nothing live in the CHSL answer key process at this moment; the next fresh provisional key will only appear once the new 2026 notification is released, its application and Tier 1 exam windows run their course, and SSC begins the cycle over again from the start. In the meantime, it's worth candidates understanding a few practical nuances of the objection process itself, since these matter more the closer a candidate's score sits to the eventual cutoff. First, objections are evaluated by subject-matter experts independently of the candidate who raised them, meaning a challenge is assessed purely on whether the flagged question or answer genuinely has a defect — an ambiguous phrasing, a factual error, a question outside the notified syllabus, or more than one technically correct option — rather than on how many candidates raised the same objection; a question challenged by thousands of candidates carries no more evidentiary weight in SSC's review than the same question challenged by just one, though in practice popular objections often do reflect genuine defects simply because more people are likely to have spotted them. Second, when an objection is upheld, the correction applies uniformly to every candidate who attempted that question across every shift where it appeared, not just to the candidate who happened to raise the challenge, which is why the final key can sometimes shift a meaningful number of candidates' raw scores even when only a handful of questions are actually corrected. Third, candidates should be careful about a mistake that costs some aspirants their ₹100 fee for no benefit: objections must cite a specific, defensible reason — ideally referencing a standard textbook, an official source, or a clear internal inconsistency in the question itself — rather than simply asserting disagreement with the marked answer, since SSC's review panel routinely rejects objections that amount to little more than a personal preference for a different response. On the broader question of how much weight to put on a self-calculated score from either tier's answer key, it's worth being candid that this exercise is useful for a rough sense of standing but should not be treated as a precise predictor, for reasons beyond just the possibility of post-objection corrections. Both tiers, and Tier 1 in particular given how many shifts it runs across, rely on inter-shift normalisation to produce the final, official score that actually determines qualification — a statistical adjustment that accounts for the relative difficulty of the specific shift and question set a candidate faced, and which cannot be replicated by a candidate manually tallying their own correct and incorrect answers against the provisional key. A candidate who performed strongly against an unusually difficult shift, for instance, may see their normalised score sit meaningfully higher than their raw self-calculated total once SSC applies this adjustment, while the reverse is equally possible for a candidate who faced an easier shift. This is precisely why serious candidates typically treat their answer-key self-assessment as a useful sanity check — confirming, roughly, whether they are in realistic contention or clearly short of the historical cutoff range — rather than as a number to fixate on while waiting for the official result. It's also worth candidates preparing for the eventual new 2026 cycle noting that SSC has, in recent years across several of its exams including CHSL, occasionally tightened its objection-fee refund process and clarified what counts as valid supporting evidence for a challenge, so candidates intending to raise objections during the next Tier 1 or Tier 2 window should read the specific instructions published alongside that cycle's provisional key carefully, rather than assuming the exact process described here for the 2025 cycle will repeat completely unchanged in every procedural detail.

एसएससी सीएचएसएल की उत्तर कुंजी प्रक्रिया दो चरणों में चलती है — टियर 1 और टियर 2 के लिए अलग-अलग। पिछले (2025) चक्र के दोनों चरण पूरे हो चुके हैं। टियर 1 उत्तर कुंजी नवंबर 2025 परीक्षा के बाद उम्मीदवार लॉगिन के माध्यम से जारी हुई थी, तथा टियर 2 उत्तर कुंजी 10 अप्रैल 2026 की परीक्षा के बाद। दोनों बार आपत्ति दर्ज करने के लिए प्रति प्रश्न ₹100 शुल्क देना होता था, जो आपत्ति सही पाए जाने पर वापस कर दिया जाता है। अंकन योजना: टियर 1 में प्रत्येक प्रश्न 2 अंक का है, गलत उत्तर पर 0.5 अंक कटते हैं (कुल 200 अंक, 100 प्रश्न)। टियर 2 में सेक्शन 1, 2 और सेक्शन 3 के मॉड्यूल I में प्रत्येक प्रश्न 3 अंक का है, गलत उत्तर पर 1 अंक कटता है — जबकि स्किल/टाइपिंग टेस्ट (मॉड्यूल II) केवल क्वालीफाइंग है, इसमें कोई नकारात्मक अंकन नहीं है। अंतिम मेरिट केवल सेक्शन 1 और 2 के अंकों पर आधारित होती है। दोनों आपत्ति विंडो अब बंद हो चुकी हैं; अगली उत्तर कुंजी नए 2026 चक्र की टियर 1 परीक्षा के बाद ही जारी होगी।

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