A Karnataka Civil Police Constable strategy built from the official notifications and 1,100 real questions: the true exam pattern, the fifth OMR circle rule, why the published section tables are fiction, the measured topic weightage and a 60-day plan.
Karnataka Civil Police Constable (CPC) selection turns on a single paper of 100 questions. Everything after it, the physical tests included, is pass or fail. That makes preparation easy to plan and easy to get wrong, because most published "section tables" for this exam are fabricated. This guide is built from the official 2026 notifications, the official booklets and answer keys, and a reading of 1,100 real questions across 11 past papers.
The recruitment is issued by the Karnataka State Police through its DGP Recruitment wing, and from 2026 the written exam is conducted and evaluated by KEA, the Karnataka Examinations Authority. Two notifications dated 5 June 2026, identical on the exam scheme, advertised 3,991 posts: 3,395 under the Residual notification and 596 under the Kalyana-Karnataka notification issued under Article 371J.
| Item | 2026 cycle |
|---|---|
| Vacancies | 3,991 |
| Applicants | 3,90,715 applied, 3,68,858 paid |
| Written exam | 2 August 2026 |
| Eligibility | PUC or Class 12 or equivalent, ITI and Diploma accepted |
| Age | 18 to 33 general, 35 for SC, ST and Categories 1, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B |
| Pay | Rs 37,500 to Rs 76,100, after nine months of training |
That is roughly 98 applicants per post, frightening only until you notice how many of them are studying a syllabus this exam does not have.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Structure | One undivided written paper |
| Questions and marks | 100 questions, 100 marks, 1.00 mark each |
| Duration | 90 minutes, one global timer, no sectional lockout |
| Mode and options | Offline OMR, four options per question |
| Negative marking | 0.25 per wrong answer |
| Qualifying marks | 30 |
| Medium | Kannada and English side by side, English version final in a dispute |
Three facts outside the table decide more than it does. 100 questions in 90 minutes is 54 seconds per question, so a two-minute item is not this exam's item however correct your method is. Overwriting an answer or shading two circles counts as wrong. And the written exam is the only merit-counting stage.
The most misunderstood thing about this paper, and it is new in 2026. The OMR sheet carries five circles per row. The first four are the answer options. The fifth means "not attempted", and you get five extra minutes after the final bell purely to shade it for questions you left alone. The 2024 booklet said an unanswered question gets zero. The 2026 notification says the opposite: if no circle at all is shaded in a row, 0.25 marks are deducted. A blank row now scores exactly like a wrong answer.
Work the arithmetic and strategy inverts at the margin. A blind guess among four options wins 1 mark once in four tries and loses 0.25 on the other three, averaging a gain of about 0.06 marks. The fifth circle scores a clean zero. An untouched row scores minus 0.25. So: answer, even on a hunch, before you shade the fifth circle, and never leave a row blank. Treat the fifth circle as insurance for rows you ran out of time to read, and spend those five minutes sweeping for empty rows rather than second-guessing answers.
The notification's subject cell is one row and one subject: General Studies, comprising general knowledge, science, geography, history, the Constitution of India, the national freedom movement, mental ability and moral education. No per-section counts, no sub-totals, no section headers in any real paper.
Two blueprints circulate widely and both are wrong. One claims GK 50, Mental Ability 25 and Language 25. The other claims GK 30, Kannada 20, English 20, Numerical 15 and Reasoning 15. They contradict the official wording and each other, and the paper settles it: across 1,100 questions there is not one Kannada grammar question, not one English grammar question, not one vocabulary item and not one comprehension passage. Buying a language book for this paper wastes weeks you do not have.
What the papers do show is same-topic blocks of 10 to 20 questions in an order that changes every cycle. The 2026 Kalyana-Karnataka paper put mental ability at questions 31 to 45; the Residual paper put it at questions 1 to 15. You cannot plan around the order, so do not try.
Measured across seven Civil Police Constable papers and weighted toward the two 2026 papers, which independently landed on the same split of 85 general awareness, 10 reasoning and 5 arithmetic.
| Head | Per 100 |
|---|---|
| Constitution and polity | 16 |
| General science | 15 |
| Karnataka, all heads together | 12 |
| Geography of India | 7 |
| History of India | 7 |
| Current affairs | 6 |
| Economy | 4 |
| Freedom movement | 3 |
| Science and technology | 3 |
| Ethics and moral education | 3 |
| Police situational judgement | 1 |
| Sports, culture, awards, days, environment, computer | 9 |
| Mental ability, reasoning half | 8 |
| Mental ability, arithmetic half | 6 |
One shape the papers insist on: roughly ten questions per paper are match the list grids and a comparable number are multi-statement selection items. A bank of one-fact-one-answer questions will not read like this exam. Practise figures too, about one per paper under the old regime and six per paper in 2026, including outline maps of India and Karnataka.
A separate qualifying paper of 150 marks with 50 to qualify, at SSLC first-language Kannada standard, conducted by KEA, whose marks are not added to merit. You sit it only if you did not study Kannada as a first or second language up to SSLC or higher, did not study in Kannada medium, and have not already passed a recruiting authority's Kannada test, so for most Karnataka candidates it does not apply. In 2026 it ran before the written exam, results on 23 July ahead of the 2 August paper, so for those who need it, it gates the right to sit the main paper. Scope: grammar, vocabulary, synonyms and antonyms, sentence construction, proverbs and idioms, comprehension at SSLC level.
Candidates who qualify in the written exam are called for the Physical Standard Test and the Endurance Test at five per post, and for medical examination at two per post on written marks. PST measures height, chest and weight on an electronic measuring machine, video and CCTV recorded, and is pass or fail. The Endurance Test carries no marks at all, which the notification states explicitly. Train seriously, because these stages eliminate, but no amount of running improves your rank. Published endurance timings differ between sources, so take them from your own cycle's notification.
One paper, 100 questions, 90 minutes, four options, 0.25 off for a wrong answer and now 0.25 off for a blank row too. General studies with polity and science at its centre, Karnataka at about an eighth, a small mental ability block, and a new ethics head worth 3 to 6 marks. Study that paper rather than the one the aggregator tables describe, and 30 marks to qualify becomes a floor instead of a target.
One undivided written paper of 100 objective questions carrying 100 marks, to be answered in 90 minutes on an offline OMR sheet. Every question carries 1.00 mark and has four options, 0.25 marks are deducted for a wrong answer, and 30 marks are needed to qualify. The paper is printed in Kannada and English side by side, with the English version treated as final in case of confusion.
Yes. Every wrong answer costs 0.25 marks, which is one fourth of the 1.00 mark each question carries. Overwriting an answer or shading more than one circle is also counted as a wrong answer. Since the 2026 cycle a question left completely blank on the OMR sheet also costs 0.25 marks unless the fifth circle is shaded.
It is not a fifth answer option. The first four circles in each row are the answer options and the fifth circle means not attempted. Five extra minutes are given after the final bell purely to shade it for unanswered questions. If no circle at all is shaded in a row, 0.25 marks are deducted, so the fifth circle is what saves a blank row from being penalised.
No. The notification lists one undivided General Studies subject and a reading of 1,100 questions across 11 real papers found zero Kannada grammar questions, zero English grammar questions, zero vocabulary items and zero comprehension passages. The widely circulated tables showing Kannada 20 and English 20, or Language 25, are not supported by the official text or by any real paper.
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Only candidates who did not study Kannada as a first or second language up to SSLC or higher, did not study in Kannada medium, and have not already passed a recruiting authority's Kannada test. It is a separate qualifying paper of 150 marks needing 50 marks to pass, conducted by KEA at SSLC first-language Kannada standard, and its marks are not added to merit.
