What is the APPSC Group 2 cut-off, and what score should I aim for?

Has APPSC ever published a Group 2 cut-off?

APPSC has published a category-wise Group 2 cut-off once, for the screening test of notification 25/2018, held on 5 May 2019 and announced on 25 July 2019. The open-category line was 81.2 out of 150, which is 54 percent of the paper. For the 2024 screening and the 2025 Mains it printed no cut-off at any stage.

Updated 23 September 2026. What changed

Two things in this table still matter. Every line sat between 41 and 54 percent of the paper. And BC-A, BC-B and BC-D landed on exactly the open-category mark, so being in a reserved category did not bring a lower line that year.

What we checked. On 31 August 2026 we read the Group 2 qualified list of 10 April 2024 and the selection notification of 28 January 2026 in full. We searched both for "cut off", "marks secured" and "last selected" and found nothing. Neither document has a cut-off mark, a column of marks or the score of the last person selected. The commission's web notes for those stages give the register numbers and the next date, and stop there.

What score should I aim for in APPSC Group 2?

APPSC has given no target, so the guide we use is the last Group 2 Mains whose full marks list was published. That list, for notification 25/2018, gives marks for 5,764 candidates who sat all three papers. The top score was 328.92 out of 450, or 73 percent. Rank 500 scored 267.66, about six in ten, and the middle candidate scored 228.47, about half.

Look at the gaps before the marks. From rank 1 to rank 500 the scores fall by 61 marks. From rank 500 to rank 1,000 they fall by only 11. The field is packed tightly a little below the top, so a handful of marks there moves you hundreds of places. That part of the table still holds.

The totals do not carry over. That Mains had three papers for 450 marks. The current Mains has two papers for 300, in four sections of 75 marks, and one third of a mark is cut for each wrong answer (see how the Group 2 exam is marked). The field is bigger too: about 79,500 sat the 2025 Mains, by press reports, against 5,764 who sat all three papers under 25/2018. So read the table in percent, as the shape of scoring, and not as a line to cross.

The same list shows that papers do not score alike. On Paper 2, AP history and the Constitution, the middle candidate scored 98.99 out of 150. On Paper 1, general studies and mental ability, and Paper 3, planning and economy, the middle scores were 65.31 and 65.71. One total hides a gap like that, which is why a target works better section by section.

Setting your own target. This is the method we would use. It works without a cut-off.

• Sit the 2025 Mains as a full paper, timed, and mark it with the final key, cutting one third of a mark for each wrong answer. The papers and keys are on our Group 2 previous papers page.
• Write the score as a percent for each 75-mark section: AP history, the Constitution, the economy, and science and technology.
• Place each percent against the shape of the 25/2018 list. About half was the middle of the field, about six in ten was inside the top 500, and nobody reached three quarters.
• Work on the weakest section first, then sit another full paper. The score to beat is your own previous one.

If we had to pick one number to watch, it is the percent in your weakest section. The 25/2018 list says the top is crowded, and a weak section has more room to gain than a strong one.

How many people got through each stage in 2024 and 2025?

APPSC Group 2 notification 11/2023 came out on 7 December 2023 for 899 posts, later revised to 905. By press reports, 404,037 sat the screening on 25 February 2024. The commission's own list sent 92,250 to the Mains. By press reports, 2,517 were called for verification, and 891 were selected on 28 January 2026.

Notification 11/2023, stage by stage. Each band is drawn to scale against the number who sat the screening.

Read the funnel as the odds at each step. About 23 in every 100 who sat the screening went on to the Mains. Of those who sat the Mains, about 3 in 100 were called for verification, close to three people for each post. The screening marks do not count in the final rank. Merit comes from the 300 Mains marks alone, and there is no interview. So the screening goal is to be on the Mains list, and the target that counts is your Mains score.

The cycle took 25.7 months from notification to list. The screening came 80 days after the notification, and the long wait was the year between the screening and the Mains of 23 February 2025. The computer test, which is qualifying only, came after certificate verification; one round of the two was held on 23 September 2025. Group 1 ran on the same calendar: notification 12/2023 on 8 December 2023, 91,463 at the screening on 17 March 2024, 4,496 to the Mains, 182 to interview and 87 selected on 30 January 2026. No cut-off mark was printed at any stage of either exam.

About the 1:50 and 1:100 ratios. Many websites say the screening shortlists at 1:50, widened to 1:100 in 2024. Notification 11/2023 sets no ratio. Paragraph 10.4 says the commission fixes the cut at its own discretion under G.O.Ms.No.5 of 2018. The change in 2024 was reported by the press after candidates said the paper was unusually hard. APPSC did not publish it as a rule, so we report it the same way.

Does a reserved category always get a lower cut-off?

APPSC does not give a reserved category a lower line by default, and three of its own screenings show it. In the 2019 Group 2 screening, BC-A, BC-B and BC-D sat at exactly 81.2. In the Group 4 and Executive Officer screenings of July 2022, several reserved lines sat at the general standard, among them a Scheduled Caste non-local line in the Executive Officer test.

The rule behind this is in notification 11/2023, paragraph 10.4, citing G.O.Ms.No.5 GA (Ser-A) of 5 January 2018. The commission relaxes the standard for a category only if it judges that too few candidates from that category would otherwise qualify to fill the posts reserved for it.

Where you write from can move the line further than category does. In the Executive Officer screening, BC-A women from outside the local area needed 92.71 out of 150. BC-A women local to Vizianagaram needed 69.79. That is a gap of about 23 marks inside one category.

So build your target on the open-category shape, and treat any relaxation as margin if it comes. A plan that counts on a lower line rests on something the commission uses only when a category would otherwise fall short.

Is the 40 percent minimum the same as the cut-off?

APPSC's minimum qualifying marks are 40 percent for OC and EWS, 35 percent for BC, and 30 percent for SC, ST and people with disabilities, on the Mains total. They come from a 1967 government order that both 2023 notifications cite. This is a floor below which nobody can be selected, and the working line has sat well above it.

It is easy to read 40, 35 and 30 percent as the cut-off. The one published Group 2 line tells a different story: the 2019 open-category screening line of 81.2 out of 150 was 54 percent. In the 25/2018 Mains, rank 1,000 scored 57 percent. Clearing the minimum keeps you eligible. It does not place you on the list.

What about the APPSC Group 1 cut-off?

APPSC has published one category-wise Group 1 cut-off: the Mains-to-interview lines for notification 28/2022, released on 7 June 2024. The open-category line was 409 out of 750, or 54.5 percent. Its 2019 screening result for notification 27/2018 stated a single mark, 90.42 out of 240, with 8,351 qualifying.

The open line of 409 and the Scheduled Tribe line of 362.5 are 46.5 marks apart, about 6 percent of the paper. BC-C at 403 sat above BC-A at 379, so reserved lines do not fall in a neat order. Every line is in the table below, including five zone lines that apply to post code 15 alone.

No category-wise Group 1 Prelims cut-off has been published for any cycle, and none exists for the Prelims of notification 12/2023. The next cycle has started: APPSC issued brief notification 07/2026 on 15 September 2026 and the detailed notification on 6 October 2026, with 166 vacancies and online applications from 6 to 27 October 2026.

Where do the 2024 and 2025 cut-off tables come from?

APPSC's 2024 and 2025 result notices carry register numbers only, and its results page lists them behind links that search engines cannot follow. So a 2024 or 2025 cut-off table found elsewhere is an estimate unless it names a commission document. The last Group 2 cut-off APPSC printed was for the 2019 screening, and the last Group 1 cut-off was the interview line of 7 June 2024.

A 2024 or 2025 cut-off table is a guess unless it names the document it came from. Look for a notification number and the date of a commission PDF. If neither is there, set the table aside and use the 2019 shape instead.

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