Company Board Assistant Syllabus for Prelims and Mains

Two stages, two different jobs

Kerala PSC groups graduate posts with a similar syllabus and runs a single preliminary test for all of them. In the latest cycle, that common prelims covered more than a dozen posts, from Secretariat style assistant posts in the universities to sub inspector of police, and it was held in three phases on Saturdays in May and June.

• Preliminary test: objective, OMR based, 100 marks. It is a screening round, and Kerala PSC ignores that score when it prepares the rank list.
• Main exam: held for those shortlisted from the prelims for each category number. The rank list for company board posts is prepared from this paper.
• Verification: certificates of ranked candidates are scrutinised before advice for appointment.

Because the prelims is shared, you will be competing with lakhs of aspirants aiming at other posts too, which is why the shortlist marks can be high.

Company board assistant prelims syllabus and marks

The prelims follows Kerala PSC's degree level common syllabus. The version published for the recent common test splits the 100 marks like this:

The paper runs 75 minutes, so you get roughly 45 seconds for each item. Every wrong bubble costs 0.33 of a mark.

Prelims topics part by part

• History: Europeans in Kerala, Travancore and Cochin, the reform movements and the United Kerala movement; Indian history from the medieval period to independence; world events such as the major revolutions and the United Nations
• Geography: earth structure, climate, maps, oceans; India's physiography, rivers and transport; Kerala's districts, rivers and wildlife
• Economics and civics: national income, planning and NITI Aayog, the RBI, budgets; e-governance, RTI, Lokpal and Lokayukta, elections, welfare schemes
• Constitution: Constituent Assembly, the Preamble, citizens' rights and duties, state policy directives, amendments, Panchayat Raj, the three lists
• Arts, literature, culture, sports: Kerala's art forms, Malayalam literature and journalism, festivals, awards and major sports events
• Computer basics: hardware, software, operating systems, networks, internet services, cyber crime and cyber law
• Science and technology: everyday science, nutrition, space and defence programmes, energy, environment, biotechnology
• Mental ability: sequences of numbers or letters, sign substitution, analogy, the odd item, codes, relations within a family, directions, clocks, calendars and clerical ability
• English: sentence types, tenses, articles, voice, reported speech, degrees of comparison, correction; synonyms, antonyms, idioms, phrasal verbs, one word substitutes, spelling

Company board assistant syllabus for the main exam

The main exam is a 100 mark objective paper. Kerala PSC releases a detailed syllabus for each main exam on its website shortly before the test, so take the exact split for your category number from that document.

To give you a sense of the shape, the Commission's recent detailed syllabi for clerical posts in state corporations allot marks broadly like this:

Compared with the prelims, mains questions go deeper into Kerala governance (land reforms, planning, disaster management, welfare schemes), the Constitution, and science linked to public health.

Where marks are won and lost

General knowledge is half the prelims, but almost every candidate studies it, so it rarely separates the shortlisted from the rest. The 40 marks in arithmetic, mental ability and English are where a disciplined aspirant pulls ahead, because these questions follow fixed types and reward drill. The 10 regional language marks are short but easy to drop through carelessness with word purity and sandhi questions.

In the mains, the Kerala specific parts (renaissance leaders, governance and schemes, Malayalam literature) and current affairs tend to decide close ranks.

A four month study plan

1. Month 1: the history and geography of Kerala and India, plus the Constitution, from Kerala state syllabus social science textbooks for classes 5 to 10, with short notes.
2. Month 2: economics, civics, computer basics and science; daily 25 arithmetic and reasoning questions in a timed set.
3. Month 3: English grammar and vocabulary, Malayalam grammar, then arts, literature and sports facts.
4. Month 4: full 75 minute mocks twice a week, deducting 0.33 for each error, plus past Kerala PSC degree level papers from the Commission's website.

Who can apply

The latest notification asks for a bachelor's degree, with no stream specified, and an age of 18 to 36. Backward class, SC and ST applicants get upper age concessions as per state rules. Some posts in the bundle may carry extra conditions, so read the notification of your category number.

Other Kerala PSC posts in the same family have their own pages: the company board LGS syllabus covers the last grade posts. Clerical recruitment in Tamil Nadu is explained under the TNPSC group 4 syllabus, and our state exams section collects every state commission.