The 17 July 2022 Principal paper is the closest thing to a specimen paper that exists for the Principal post. It was set for the same recruitment, by the same Commission, under the same eight syllabus heads as the Vice Principal paper — and it looks strikingly different. This page is what changes when you count it.
Every one of the 120 items in Test Booklet Series A (JHGD-U-OFX) has been transcribed from the original bilingual booklet and solved. The shares below are counted, not estimated. It is one paper, not published guidance, so treat it as evidence of emphasis rather than as a syllabus.
The paper
Format
Objective MCQ, single paper, 2 hours
Questions
120 questions, 300 marks — 2.5 marks each
Negative marking
−1/3 of the question's marks = −0.8333. Unattempted score 0
Language
Bilingual — Hindi and English, except the two language sections
Booklet
Series A · T.B.C. JHGD-U-OFX · GAT–Education
Held
17 July 2022, forenoon
Scored
117 of 120 — the Commission dropped questions 16, 93 and 107
What the paper actually asked
Cluster
Questions
Marks
Share
Library chapters
Measurement, Evaluation & Statistics
29
72.5
24.2%
1, 2, 3
Management & Financial administration
23
57.5
19.2%
13, 14, 15
English & Hindi language
16
40
13.3%
10, 11
Education & child-rights law
16
40
13.3%
6, 18
Education policy & schemes
13
32.5
10.8%
4, 5, 17
GK, polity & current affairs
12
30
10.0%
9
Reasoning & Quantitative Aptitude
10
25
8.3%
12
Digital literacy
1
2.5
0.8%
16
Total
120
300
100%
By the notified syllabus head
Head
Name
Questions
(i)
General Knowledge, incl. contemporary social, economic and cultural issues
12
(ii)
Hindi and English language skills
16
(iii)
Reasoning ability and Quantitative Aptitude
10
(iv)
Educational policies & Educational measurement and evaluation
58
(v)
Management and Financial administration
12
(vi)
Office Procedure
11
(vii)
Pedagogy in Education
0
(viii)
Digital Literacy
1
Head (iv) alone is worth 145 marks — very nearly half the paper.
Five things worth planning around
Administration is the Principal paper's second subject. The Vice Principal paper carried 3 management-and-finance items. This one carries 23, plus 11 Office Procedure questions that have no counterpart on the Vice Principal paper at all. GFR 2017 procurement thresholds, GeM, performance security, the CCS leave and conduct rules, lien, penalties, file numbering, the Record Retention Schedule. This is the single largest gap between the two papers and the easiest to close, because almost all of it is rule text with a number attached.
Measurement still leads, but it stopped computing. The Vice Principal paper made you calculate — difficulty index, discrimination index, Spearman-Brown, z-scores, standard deviation. The Principal paper mostly asks you to define: parametric versus non-parametric, the four scales of measurement, construct versus criterion validity, projective techniques, qualitative research paradigms. Exactly one item, Q50, needs a remembered figure (68.26%).
Reasoning is half the size and much lighter. Twenty questions became ten, and the hard formats vanished — no data sufficiency, no coded inequalities, no derangements. What is left is a Venn diagram, a blood relation, a pipes-and-cisterns sum, a position-in-a-row sum.
The item formats are far simpler. The Vice Principal paper had 68 items that were not plain single-correct. This paper has 34 — 26 multi-statement and 8 matching. Not one Statement-I/II item, not one assertion–reason, not one data-sufficiency item. If you have been drilling the harder formats for the Vice Principal paper, you are over-prepared for this one.
The two language sections are not translations of each other. Q21–28 are printed only in English — error spotting, three idioms, a comprehension passage on hornbills. Q29–36 are printed only in Hindi — a passage on Chanakya, two संधि-विच्छेद items, three मुहावरे matching sets. Each block tests the language it is written in, so neither can be skipped by working in the other.
On the answer key
The Commission's own Series A answer sheet exists, and our derived key agrees with it on all 116 scored items where a single answer was published.
The four remaining items are worth knowing about before you sit the paper as a mock:
Q16 — dropped. "Every X is Y, but every X is not Z" is ambiguous, and on one reading two options are simultaneously true.
Q93 — dropped. The stem asks for a section of the CPCR Act, 2005, but the provision it describes is RTE Act s.31(3). As printed, no option is correct.
Q107 — dropped. Percentage of the library book budget to be spent on Hindi books.
Q75 — double key. The Commission accepted either (a) or (c) for who chairs the State Advisory Council.
Seven items in all are flagged MEDIUM confidence in our library — 10, 15, 16, 75, 79, 93 and 107 — and each explanation names the competing reading and says which option it would give.
What to do with this paper
Sit it under time before you read a single solution. Score it with the real formula, 2.5 × correct − (2.5/3) × wrong, and score it out of 117, not 120. Then read every explanation, including the ones you got right — the distractor analysis is where the examiner's habits show, and this examiner has habits: single-word distortions of a true rule, wrong-ministry options, and absolutes like "only" and "without exception" inserted into otherwise accurate statements.
Three questions from this paper, solved
Every one of the 120 items is written this way in the
library — the answer, and why each wrong option is wrong.
Q10key: medium confidence
Consider the following statements regarding cryptocurrencies in India :
1. Transactions involving cryptocurrencies are not done through commercial banks.
2. There are no cryptocurrency exchanges in India.
3. Cryptocurrencies cannot be used in money laundering.
4. Cryptocurrencies cannot be regulated by any financial sector regulator.
Which of the statements given above are correct ?
(a) 1, 2 and 3 only
(b) 2, 3 and 4 only
(c) 1 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Answer (c).
Statements 1 and 4 describe the position as the Government itself has repeatedly stated it in Parliament: cryptocurrency transfers move peer-to-peer on the blockchain rather than through the banking channel, and as on the date of this paper no financial sector regulator — neither the RBI nor SEBI — had statutory jurisdiction over virtual digital assets, which is precisely the gap the proposed cryptocurrency Bill was meant to fill. Statement 2 is plainly false: several Indian exchanges were operating and, indeed, the Finance Act 2022 had just imposed a 30% tax on income from virtual digital assets, which presupposes a functioning market. Statement 3 is false and dangerously so — pseudonymity makes crypto an attractive laundering channel, which is why exchanges were later brought under the PMLA reporting regime. Marked MEDIUM because statement 1 is loosely worded — Indian users routinely fund and withdraw from exchanges through their bank accounts — and a reader who treats that as a "transaction involving cryptocurrency" would call 1 false and be left with 4 alone, an answer not on offer, which is itself the strongest argument that the examiner intended the narrow reading and the key (c).
Q100
Which of the following issues cannot be taken up for Redressal of Grievances through web-based Central Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) ?
1. Personal and Family Disputes
2. Sub judice cases
3. Right to Information matters
4. Suggestions
Select the correct answer using the code given below :
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 1, 2 and 4 only
(c) 1, 3 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Answer (d).
The CPGRAMS portal publishes a list of matters that are not treated as grievances, and all four items appear in it: personal and family disputes, which are private matters for the civil courts; sub judice cases or any matter concerning a judgment given by a court, since the executive cannot interfere with judicial proceedings; Right to Information matters, which have their own complete statutory machinery of PIO, first appeal and Information Commission under the RTI Act, 2005; and suggestions, which are welcome but are not grievances because no wrong has been done to the complainant. Hence (d). (a), (b) and (c) each retain one or two of these categories as admissible, and the one candidates most often think is admissible is RTI — because CPGRAMS and RTI are both citizen-facing grievance-adjacent systems, it feels natural to route an RTI complaint through the portal, but the two run on entirely separate statutory tracks. The other excluded heads are religious matters, service matters including disciplinary proceedings, and anything affecting the territorial integrity of India or friendly relations with a foreign State.
Q117
In respect of which of the following activities is previous sanction of the Government not required by a Government servant ?
1. Undertaking honorary work of a social nature
2. Participating in sports activities as an amateur
3. Making a privately produced media programme
4. Undertaking occasional work of artistic character
Select the correct answer using the code given below :
(a) 1, 2 and 4
(b) 1, 2 and 3
(c) 2 and 4 only
(d) 1, 3 and 4
Answer (a).
Rule 15 of the CCS (Conduct) Rules, 1964 bars a Government servant from engaging directly or indirectly in any trade or business, or undertaking any other employment, except with the previous sanction of the Government. But the rule carves out exceptions in which no such sanction is needed, and three of them appear here: undertaking honorary work of a social or charitable nature (1); participating in sports activities as an amateur (2); and undertaking literary, artistic or scientific work of an occasional character (4). Hence (a). Item 3 is expressly on the other side of the line — the rule states that a Government servant shall not, except with previous sanction, take part in the production of any privately produced media programme, whether audio-visual or otherwise, since such participation carries a risk of publicity, endorsement and private gain. The exceptions are all unpaid, occasional or purely recreational; the moment an activity becomes public performance for a private producer, sanction is required. Codes (b) and (d) admit item 3, and (c) needlessly drops the honorary social work exception.
Sit both 2022 papers
The Vice Principal paper is solved in full here. The
library holds both papers, 11 full-length mocks and
5,847 explained questions, all scored on the real formula.
