APSC Answer Key: CCE Prelims Key, Claims, Past Dates

APSC notified the provisional answer keys of the Combined Competitive (Preliminary) Examination 2025 on 5 July 2026, the same day the exam was held, and took claims until 10 July 2026. The Prelims result followed on 30 July 2026. The Main Examination, six conventional essay-type papers, was scheduled for 9 to 11 October 2026 at Guwahati, and its result had not been posted on APSC's results page as of 27 October 2026.

Is the APSC CCE 2025 answer key out?

Yes, for the Prelims. The APSC notification of 5 July 2026 covers General Studies Paper-I and Paper-II, series-wise, and the keys are posted on the Answer Keys page of apsc.nic.in. The claim link was available from the morning of 6 July 2026.

How to raise a claim against an APSC key

• Submit your opinion with an authentic source through the link on the official website, on or before the closing date in the notification.
• A claim not backed by an authentic source is not entertained, and a reference to a website or an unspecified document is not accepted.
• Petitions by e-mail or hard copy are not considered.

APSC's notices for its other screening tests set out the same procedure. For the Assistant Engineer (Public Health Engineering) test of 27 September 2026 (Advt. No. 31/2025), claims closed on 1 October 2026. For the Class-I (Junior Grade) Home Guards test of 4 October 2026 (Advt. No. 02/2026), they closed on 8 October 2026. In CCE 2022 the procedure was different: candidates downloaded an Answer Key Claim Format and e-mailed claims by 31 March 2023.

Marking scheme: how to score yourself

Under Advt. No. 01/2026, the Prelims has two objective papers of two hours each: General Studies-I (200 marks) and General Studies-II (200 marks). Every question has four alternatives. For a wrong answer, one-fourth of the marks assigned to that question are deducted, and marking more than one answer counts as wrong even if one of them is correct. Paper-II is qualifying, with minimum qualifying marks fixed at 33%. Prelims marks are not counted in the final order of merit, so Paper-I marks matter only for reaching the Mains.

What happens after the provisional key

The Prelims result is a list of roll numbers declared qualified on the basis of the ratio in the APSC (Conduct of Business) Procedure, 2019. Under the advertisement, the number admitted to the Mains is 11 to 12 times the vacancies notified for each category. The last CCE final key on the Answer Keys page is for CCE 2022, notified on 17 May 2023. That notice awarded grace marks on a pro-rata basis: total grace allowed × marks obtained ÷ (total marks − total grace allowed), with .5 and above rounded up. For CCE 2023, 2024 and 2025, the Answer Keys page lists the provisional keys.

APSC CCE Prelims answer keys in past cycles

The CCE 2024 Prelims result was declared on 17 July 2025, and the CCE 2025 result on 30 July 2026.