UP Police Constable Exam Pattern 2026: Marking Scheme, Stages and PET

The UP Police Constable exam pattern decides how you should spend every minute of your preparation. The Uttar Pradesh Police Recruitment and Promotion Board (UPPRPB) selects constables for Civil Police, PAC, Special Security Force, Mounted Police and Jail Warder posts through one common process, and the latest cycle (Advt. No. 07/2025) was notified for 32,679 posts.

This page explains the full structure: the written exam, the marking scheme and negative marking, the physical stages, and how the final merit list is made. It also turns the numbers into practical strategy, so you know what a wrong guess really costs and how much time each section deserves.

Table of Contents

UP Police Constable Exam Pattern

The selection process has five steps. Only the written exam is scored for merit. Every other stage is qualifying, which means you must clear it, but it adds no marks.

The practical takeaway is simple. Your written score decides your rank, while the physical and medical stages decide whether you stay in the race. Both need preparation, but they need different kinds of preparation.

Written Exam Pattern

The written exam is a single objective paper of 150 multiple-choice questions for 300 marks, to be completed in 2 hours (120 minutes). It is conducted in pen-and-paper mode on OMR sheets. Questions are available in Hindi and English, except the General Hindi section, which is in Hindi.

There is no separate timer for each section. You can attempt the sections in any order and move between them freely, which makes your own time plan important.

What each section tests

• General Knowledge: Indian history, polity, geography, economy, general science, current affairs, and Uttar Pradesh-specific topics such as its culture, administration and police system.

• General Hindi: grammar (sandhi, samas, upsarg, pratyay, ling, vachan), synonyms, antonyms, one-word substitution, idioms and proverbs, sentence correction and passage-based questions.

• Numerical and Mental Ability: arithmetic such as percentage, ratio, profit and loss, interest, average, time and work, time and distance and mensuration, plus number series, coding and logical diagrams.

• Mental Aptitude, IQ and Reasoning: analogies, classification, blood relations, direction sense, Venn diagrams, and police-aptitude questions on public interest, law and order, communal harmony and gender sensitivity.

Marking Scheme and Negative Marking

Each correct answer earns 2 marks. Each wrong answer deducts 0.5 marks, which is one-fourth of the marks for that question. A question left blank neither adds nor deducts anything.

A worked example makes this clearer. Suppose you attempt 140 questions and get 124 right and 16 wrong.

• Marks for correct answers: 124 x 2 = 248

• Deduction for wrong answers: 16 x 0.5 = 8

• Raw score: 248 - 8 = 240 out of 300

Your raw score is then normalised, because the exam runs in several shifts. That is why published cut-offs carry long decimals.

What the Pattern Means for You

Numbers on a pattern table only help when you turn them into decisions. Here is what this structure means in practice.

• All sections carry almost equal weight: Each section is worth 74 or 76 marks. There is no "minor" section, so a weak subject costs as much as a weak core subject would in other exams.

• One wrong answer cancels a quarter of a right one: Four wrong answers wipe out the marks of one correct answer. Accuracy matters, but the penalty is mild compared with exams that deduct one-third.

• Educated guesses pay off: With four options, if you can rule out even one wrong option, the expected gain from attempting is clearly positive. Skip only the questions where you genuinely have no idea.

• The cut-off is very high: In the 2026 result, the unreserved shortlist cut-off was above 258 out of 300. That is roughly 132 correct answers with no more than 12 wrong. Speed and accuracy both have to be strong.

• General Hindi and GK are fast-scoring sections: They need recall, not calculation. Strong revision here buys you time for numerical questions.

Minimum Qualifying Marks and Normalisation

Before anyone is shortlisted, candidates must reach a minimum percentage in the written exam. Only candidates who cross this line are placed in the merit order for the next stage.

Treat these as a floor, not a target. Clearing the minimum only means you are counted. The actual shortlist cut-off is decided by vacancies and competition, and in recent cycles it has been far above these figures.

Because the 2026 written exam ran in six shifts across three days, the board used normalised marks to compare candidates from different shifts fairly. Your normalised score, not the raw score, decides your position.

Document Verification and Physical Standard Test

Candidates are called for DV and PST in a fixed multiple of the vacancies, based on written merit. In the 2026 cycle, 76,184 candidates were called, about 2.3 times the number of posts.

At DV, your certificates for age, qualification, category, domicile and any special category are checked against what you entered in the application. At PST, your body measurements are taken.

Men must also show a minimum chest expansion of 5 cm. If too few candidates qualify at this stage, the board can call more candidates from the written merit list.

Physical Efficiency Test

The PET is a running test held only for candidates who clear DV and PST. It is purely qualifying.

A pace of about 5 minutes 12 seconds per kilometre gets men inside the limit, and about 5 minutes 50 seconds per kilometre does the same for women. Most candidates who fail the PET fail because they start running only after the written result. Start light running early, and build up to the full distance a few weeks before the PET.

Medical Examination and Final Merit

Candidates who clear the PET go through a medical examination. It checks eyesight, general fitness and any condition that would make police duty unsafe. Final appointment also depends on character and antecedent verification.

The final merit list is prepared from the normalised written exam marks of candidates who clear every stage, following the reservation rules. Physical tests add no marks, so two candidates with the same written score stay tied regardless of how fast they ran.

Time Management and Exam-Day Strategy

With 150 questions in 120 minutes, you get about 48 seconds per question on average. That average is misleading, because some sections take far less time than others. A simple plan works better than a fixed number for each question.

• Use two rounds: In the first round, answer every question you can solve in under a minute. In the second round, return to the marked ones.

• Fill the OMR as you go: Leaving all the bubbling for the last ten minutes is risky. Fill each section once you finish it.

• Stick to the sequence you practised: Exam day is not the time to try a new order. Use the order that worked in your mock tests.

For timed practice in this exact pattern, you can attempt UP Police online tests on Testkart and use the section-wise analysis to see where your time actually goes. Pair them with UP Police previous year papers to understand the real difficulty level.

Common Mistakes Seen on Other Pages

The exam pattern has changed over the years, and many pages have not kept up. Older pages may still show a different version, so follow the official notification.

• Negative marking of 0.25: Some pages still show this older figure. The current deduction is 0.5 marks for each wrong answer.

• Computer-based test: The written exam is conducted on OMR sheets, not on computers.

• "General Science" as a section: General science is part of the General Knowledge section, not a separate section.

• Physical marks in merit: The PET is qualifying only and does not add to your score.

Always confirm the pattern for your cycle in the official notification and notices on the UPPRPB official website.