Railways · Government Exams

RRB ALP Exam Pattern

Every figure here is from CEN 01/2026 — what each stage asks, what a wrong answer costs, how many are shortlisted at each step and how the final merit is computed.

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RRB ALP · checked 19 September 2026

The dates, vacancies and rules below are read on the conducting body’s own site and rewritten as each notice appears. The guide beneath carries the full pattern, syllabus, cut-offs and free mock tests.

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19September 2026

Checked 19 September 2026

RRB ALP: the facts that matter now

01
Notification 14 May 2026; applications 15 May – 14 June 2026; modification 17–26 June; CBT 1 to be scheduled
2026 cycle
02
Railway Recruitment Boards for the zonal railways — CEN 01/2026 (Assistant Loco Pilot)
Conducted by
03
Assistant Loco Pilot, Pay Level 2, initial pay ₹19,900, medical standard A-1
Post
04
11,127 across 21 RRBs — Mumbai (CR) 1,078, Secunderabad 1,420 across two zones, Bhubaneswar 801, Ranchi 1,300 across two zones, Guwahati 676…
Vacancies

Pattern

RRB ALP — RRB ALP exam pattern 2026: CBT 1, CBT 2 Part A and B, CBAT and the 50:50 merit

ALP has two computer-based tests, a computer-based aptitude test, document verification and the A-1 medical. CBT 1 screens and is discarded; CBT 2 Part A carries half the merit and Part B is a qualifying trade paper; the CBAT carries the other half of the merit. Both CBTs deduct a third of a mark per wrong answer; the CBAT has no negative marking.

RRB ALP CBT 1. Objective; 1 mark per question; 60 minutes; one third of a mark deducted per wrong answer; screening only.
Item	Detail
Questions and marks	75 questions, 75 marks
Sections	Mathematics; Mental Ability; General Science; General Awareness on Current Affairs
Minimum marks	UR and EWS 40 per cent, OBC 30, SC 30, ST 25
Shortlist	15 times the RRB’s vacancies for CBT 2, RRB- and community-wise on normalised marks

RRB ALP CBT 2. Objective; 175 questions in 2 hours 30 minutes; one third of a mark deducted per wrong answer.
Part	Questions	Time	Subjects	Role
Part A	100	90 minutes	Mathematics; General Intelligence and Reasoning; Basic Science and Engineering	Counts: shortlists for the CBAT and carries 50 per cent of the merit; minimum 40/30/30/25 per cent by category
Part B	75	60 minutes	The DGT trade syllabus of the candidate’s ITI trade or the trade mapped to the diploma or degree discipline	Qualifying at 35 per cent for all; marks not counted

How CBT 2 is used

Part A is the paper that matters — Its normalised marks shortlist eight times the vacancies per community for the CBAT and are half the final merit.
Part B is a gate — Thirty-five per cent, irrespective of category, is required; a candidate below it is out regardless of Part A.
Trade selection — ITI and apprenticeship candidates answer their own trade; diploma and degree holders select one trade from the list mapped to their engineering discipline at application.
Normalisation — Where a test runs in more than one shift, marks are normalised across shifts by the RRBs’ published formula, and it is the normalised score — not the raw mark — that is compared with the cut-off and used for shortlisting.

Computer-based aptitude test and the final merit.
Item	Detail
Who	Eight times the vacancies per community (UR including OBC-CL, OBC-NCL, SC, ST, EWS, with ESM) on Part A marks, subject to Part B
Entry condition	Self-screening medical declaration (Annexures VIII A and B) certified by an eye specialist, in original
Qualifying	T-score of 42 in each test battery separately, no relaxation for any category
Format	English and Hindi only; no negative marking; formats described on the RDSO psychology pages
Merit	CBT 2 Part A 50 per cent + CBAT 50 per cent, RRB-wise; candidates equal to vacancies called for verification and medical

For reference, RRB Chandigarh’s CBT 1 cut-offs for CEN 01/2025, declared on 12 June 2026, were 79.56 (UR), 73.92 (OBC), 71.28 (SC), 54.64 (ST), 54.22 (EWS) and 34.65 (ex-servicemen) out of 75 normalised marks. Each RRB publishes its own list and cut-offs move with the vacancies and the shifts.

What the pattern means for how you attempt the paper

CBT 1: 48 seconds a question — Seventy-five in an hour; take mathematics and mental ability first and leave anything that takes longer than a minute.
CBT 2 Part A: accuracy over attempts — A third off per error; 70 clean answers beat 90 rushed ones.
Part B: reach the pass mark and stop — The marks do not count; secure 35 per cent with your strongest topics and conserve energy.
CBAT: every battery, not the total — Failing one battery fails the test; practise each format until none is a weak point.

RRB ALP syllabus for CBT 1, CBT 2 and the trades Free RRB ALP mock tests on the CBT 1 and CBT 2 patterns RRB ALP previous year papers

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