A general Junior Assistant notification had not been issued as on 10 October 2026, and Notification 25/2026 (Hostel Welfare Officer Grade-II) has no exam date yet. So this plan has two parts: a base you build now, on the official scheme in Notification 23/2021, and a sprint you run from the day the notification fixes a date. The plan is built from the exam pattern rather than general advice. Study advice here is ours; arithmetic is labelled.
1. Know where the marks are
Selection is on the Mains (para 15.1). Within it:
| Block | Screening (150) | Mains (300) | Share of the Mains |
|---|---|---|---|
| General Studies and Mental Ability | 100 | 150 | 50% |
| General English | 25 | 75 | 25% |
| General Telugu | 25 | 75 | 25% |
The languages are one-third of the Screening Test and half of the Mains. Most candidates plan as if General Studies were the whole exam; on the numbers, that is the most expensive mistake in this scheme. Inside General Studies, two of the twelve items are reasoning and data (items 10 and 11) and six point at Andhra Pradesh (items 4, 5, 6, 7 and 12 by name, item 2 through "regional"). A reasonable split of General Studies time, our suggestion: one-third AP-specific content, one-third polity, economy, history and geography in general, one-third reasoning, data and current affairs.
The Computer Proficiency Test carries no rank marks but is a technical qualification for the post. It needs a fixed weekly slot, not a last-week panic.
2. Time per question and when to guess
- Time: 60 seconds a question in every paper (100 in 100, 50 in 50, 150 in 150). Generous for recall, tight for data interpretation and sentence re-arrangement. Bank time on recall questions.
- Guessing: +1 for right, −1/3 for wrong. An attempt helps on average once your chance of being right is above 25% (arithmetic). After eliminating one option you are at 33%; guess. With no elimination, skip, unless mocks show your blind-guess accuracy is reliably above a quarter.
3. One reading list for both stages
The Screening and Mains syllabi are identical, so read once at Mains depth and test in both formats.
| Syllabus block | What to read | Pareeksha material |
|---|---|---|
| AP history, polity, economy, geography, bifurcation (items 4, 5, 6, 7, 12) | One source per topic; the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 and its implications as a separate chapter | Junior Assistant complete guide (Telugu); Andhra Pradesh state guide |
| Current affairs and general science (items 1, 2, 3) | Daily, with an AP column | Daily Dangal |
| Disaster management and environment (items 8, 9) | Short notes: vulnerability profile, mitigation, remote sensing and GIS; AP cyclone, flood and drought cases | Own notes |
| Reasoning, DI, data analysis (items 10, 11) | Timed sets; mean, median, mode, variance, coefficient of variation | Reasoning and arithmetic shortcuts; Data interpretation and mental ability; Group-IV arithmetic and reasoning (Telugu) |
| General Telugu | Grammar, synonyms, usage and idiom, translation of meaning both ways | Telugu grammar notes: sandhi, samasa, alankara, chandassu |
| General English | Comprehension, usage and idioms, vocabulary and punctuation, sentence re-arrangement, grammar | One editorial a day plus five error-spotting questions |
| Secretarial abilities (older SSC-standard scheme) | Verbal and non-verbal mental ability, comprehension, sentence re-arrangement, arithmetic | Group-IV Secretarial Abilities (Telugu) |
4. The base plan: 12 weeks before any notification
Our plan. Move between phases on mock results, not just dates.
| Weeks | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1–3 | Andhra Pradesh first. The bifurcation item, modern Andhra history, AP geography and a first pass on AP economic development. Start the daily language habit on day one: 20 minutes English, 20 minutes Telugu. |
| 4–6 | Polity, economy, environment, disaster management. Constitutional issues and e-governance with AP reference; economic development since independence; sustainable development; the disaster-management item in full. Daily 30-minute reasoning set. |
| 7–9 | Reasoning and data. Timed sets of logical reasoning and DI; the five statistics; tabulation and charts. One timed Section-B-style test a week (50 questions in 50 minutes). First CPT practice session on a real computer. |
| 10–12 | Full tests on the official format. Screening: 100 questions in 100 minutes, then 50 in 50, back to back. Mains: 150 in 150, twice a week in rotation (Paper-I one week, Paper-II the next). Split every score by block and by language. |
Daily minimum, all 12 weeks: 30 minutes of current affairs with an AP column, 20 minutes of English, 20 minutes of Telugu, and a timed set of 15 to 20 reasoning questions.
Weekly minimum: one CPT task set on a real computer, 30 minutes, files saved with the right names.
A sample day for a working candidate
| Time | Task |
|---|---|
| Morning, 60 minutes | That week's General Studies block (AP item, polity, or reasoning) |
| Commute, 30 minutes | Current affairs and AP news |
| Evening, 20 + 20 minutes | English error-spotting and re-arrangement; Telugu vocabulary and translation |
| Evening, 20 minutes | Yesterday's errors |
| Weekend | One full test (two from week 10), the CPT session, and the weekly revision |
That is 2 hours 30 minutes on a weekday and it touches every block of the written scheme.
5. The sprint: from notification to exam
When the notification comes, do these in order (our checklist):
- Read Annexure-II before anything else. Compare it line by line with the 23/2021 list on our syllabus page. If an item moved, your plan moves with it. Check whether the CPT is the 30-minute, 50-mark version or the 60-minute, 100-mark version used in Notification 25/2026.
- Choose your district deliberately. The district you pick is final, you write the exam there, and under the Presidential Order 2025 95% of its posts go to its local candidates. Read Annexure-I for the posts in your district and your category line before you choose.
- Update OTPR and apply early. Community, age relaxation and local particulars are pre-filled from OTPR and locked after submission. Do not leave the application to the last day.
- Re-plan the weeks to the date. If the Screening Test is held (only when applications exceed 200 times the vacancies), it is a gate, not a target: keep preparing for the Mains and let the Screening Test come out of that.
- Last three weeks: no new topics. Two full tests a week at the exam time, the AP fact sheet, the last six months of current affairs, and one CPT run every three days.
6. Subject tactics from the syllabus
- Bifurcation (item 12): build one table with six columns, administrative, economic, social, cultural, political and legal, and fill each from the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014: assets and liabilities, staff allocation, the capital, river boards, special status, Schedule 13 institutions. It is the most AP-specific item and appears in both stages.
- Modern history with AP emphasis (item 4): the notification does not ask for ancient and medieval dynasties. Spend the time on the Andhra movement, the 1953 and 1956 formations, the 1969 and 1972 agitations, and 2014.
- Polity with AP reference (item 5): e-governance initiatives and reforms are named. Keep a list of AP schemes and portals with the department and the year.
- Data analysis (item 11): ten worked questions each on variance and coefficient of variation are enough; they are formulas, not concepts.
- Telugu (Section B, Paper-II): two of five items are translation of meaning. Keep a sheet of word, synonym, English meaning and a sample sentence, and add ten words a day. Grammar is sandhi, samasa and the basics in our grammar notes.
- English: logical re-arrangement of sentences is a named item; practise it as a separate type, five a day.
- CPT: the notification makes the folder and file names your responsibility. Practise the whole routine: create the folder, name it with a hall-ticket number, save each part under its name, then do the task.
7. A weekly mock-analysis routine
Tag every wrong or skipped question:
- Concept gap – learn it, then do 10 questions on it.
- Fact slip – add to the revision sheet.
- Time – practise that block against the clock.
- Careless – slow the first read.
- Bad guess – guess only after elimination.
- Language – note whether the loss was in English or Telugu; they are separate blocks.
Count tags weekly; the largest is next week's work. Compare your percentile, not only your raw marks: on Pareeksha everyone in a cohort sits the same fixed paper, so your percentile shows where you stand on identical questions (how it works).
8. Mistakes this scheme punishes
- Treating the languages as a formality. They are half the Mains. A candidate who loses 30 of 150 on Paper-II needs to be 30 better than everyone else on Paper-I.
- Reading a Group-IV syllabus for another post. The SSC-standard Junior Assistant scheme, the Hostel Welfare Officer scheme and the Junior Assistant cum Computer Assistant scheme are different documents. Match the scheme to the notification number.
- Over-reading history. Item 4 is modern India. Five books on ancient dynasties are time taken from the AP items and data analysis.
- Leaving the CPT to the result. The call comes at 1:2, with the test soon after. Weekly practice from now costs little.
- Blind guessing. With a one-third penalty, a run of blind guesses cancels correct answers. Measure your own guess accuracy in mocks before you trust it.
- Choosing a district on impulse. It is final, and it decides your line in the list.
- Relying on forwarded dates. Use only the Commission's website.
9. If the exam is in Telugu medium
Our suggestions, not APPSC rules:
- Choose your medium before the mocks and take the mocks in it. The paper is set in English and translated into Telugu, and the English version is authentic if they differ, so keep the English term for every technical word (fiscal deficit, remote sensing, coefficient of variation) next to the Telugu.
- The language sections test both languages whatever your medium. Telugu-medium candidates should not skip the English block, and English-medium candidates should not skip Telugu grammar.
- Our Telugu-medium Reading Room books for this exam are the Junior Assistant complete guide, arithmetic and reasoning and Secretarial Abilities. The Telugu version of this page is at /telugu/exam/appsc-group4/preparation.
10. Preparing for Hostel Welfare Officer Grade-II instead
If your target is Notification 25/2026 (graduation with B.Ed. or equivalent), the General Studies base above transfers almost whole: Paper-I has ten items that overlap the Junior Assistant list, without the language section and the bifurcation item. Paper-II is Education: foundations of education, educational psychology with its statistics unit, and trends in education. There is no Screening Test; the exam is a single computer-based test, normalised if held in sessions, and the CPT is 60 minutes and 100 marks. Applications close on 29 October 2026; the exam date will be intimated later. Build the GS base from this page and the Education paper from your B.Ed. texts.
11. Practising on Pareeksha
- Free: the 10-question Group-IV mini-mock to try the format, and the Daily Dangal quiz for daily current affairs and GS.
- Pro: full-length mocks in the official format, previous-year papers and topic-wise practice through the online test series. See plans.
Related: Syllabus · Exam pattern · Cut-off · Group-IV guide · తెలుగులో