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Tamil Nadu · Government Exams
Three stages, and only the last two count. Knowing which stage carries which marks changes how a year of preparation is spent.
TNPSC Group 1 · 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.
Checked 19 September 2026
Notification 05/2026 — 46 posts; applications closed 29 July; prelims 27 September 2026 at 38 district centres, hall tickets on the OTR dashboard…
Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission
A bachelor’s degree; preferences by post, and a law degree raises the age ceiling for the commercial taxes post
Objective prelims at 1:20 → Tamil paper plus three descriptive general studies papers → 100-mark interview
Pattern
| Stage | Format | Counts? | What it decides |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preliminary | One objective paper, 300 marks | No | Who writes the mains — twenty per vacancy |
| Mains Paper I | Descriptive Tamil, 100 marks | No | Whether Papers II to IV are evaluated |
| Mains Papers II to IV | Descriptive, 750 marks | Yes | Most of the rank |
| Interview | 100 marks, no minimum | Yes | The order among candidates the mains ranked close |
The mains is worth seven and a half times the interview and the prelims is worth nothing, so preparation time goes to writing practice long before the prelims result. But the interview is called at two or three per vacancy with no floor, which means roughly half of those interviewed are not selected — and among candidates within a few mains marks of one another, the board decides.
TNPSC revises paper structure, marks, syllabus detail and eligibility between recruitment cycles, and has done so more than once in recent years — the Tamil eligibility component itself is a recent addition. Everything here describes the shape the recruitment has held; the notification for the cycle you are sitting is the document that decides it. Read it end to end before you plan around any figure.
Exam resources
Six resource pages, each kept in step with the latest official notification.
Read the syllabus, attempt a free mock, then fix the section that costs you the most marks.
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