The CUET General Aptitude Test (paper 501) has no prescribed textbook, and NTA lists only broad areas: general knowledge and current affairs, general mental and numerical ability, quantitative reasoning built on basic arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mensuration and statistics, logical and analytical reasoning, and general science with environmental literacy. The maths and science stay close to Class 10 NCERT level, so those two books are the safest base. Static GK about the Constitution, geography and national institutions is steadier ground than fast-changing news. Speed matters as much as knowledge, so practise series, coding, blood relations and percentage problems against the clock.
5 units
50 questions · 60 min
+5 / −1 marking
General Test · no prescribed textbook
6,75,419 appeared in 2026
What to study in each unit
Based on the official NTA 2026 syllabus, mapped to skill areas.
Unit
What to study
Skill area
1General awareness
Indian Constitution basics: key dates, Preamble, fundamental rights and duties, constitutional bodies
Indian geography: states and capitals, rivers, national parks and tiger reserves, major crops
Indian history milestones: national movement dates such as the Purna Swaraj resolution (1929) and the adoption of the Constitution (1949)
Economy and institutions: RBI, NITI Aayog, Election Commission, major government schemes
Current affairs: summits, awards, sports events, appointments and new policies from roughly the past year
Preamble
Purna Swaraj
Biosphere reserve
Constitutional body
General knowledge
2Mental and numerical ability
Number and letter series: differences, ratios, squares and cubes, and patterns such as ×2+1
Coding-decoding with letter shifts, reversals and number codes; alphabet positions (A=1 … Z=26)
Analogies and classification (odd one out) with words, numbers and letters
Mental arithmetic: squares to 30, cubes to 15, divisibility rules, fractions to percentages
Letter shift
Number series
Odd one out
Mental ability
3Quantitative reasoning
Percentages, profit and loss, discount, simple and compound interest, ratio and proportion
Time and work, time-speed-distance, averages and ages
Linear equations in two variables and quadratic equations (NCERT Class 10 Maths Ch 3–4)
Triangles, circles, areas and volumes of common solids (NCERT Class 10 Maths Ch 6, 10, 11–12)
Mean, median and mode of data (NCERT Class 10 Maths Ch 13)
Marked price
Successive percentage
Mean
Surface area
Quantitative reasoning
4Logical and analytical reasoning
Blood relations and family-tree puzzles
Direction sense and distance problems
Seating and ranking arrangements; order and position
Syllogisms: drawing only conclusions that must follow, including valid conversions
Statement and assumption, cause and effect, and simple data sufficiency
Syllogism
Blood relation
Seating arrangement
Logical reasoning
5Science and environment
Physics basics: light, electricity, magnetism and units (NCERT Class 10 Science Ch 9–12)
Chemistry basics: acids, bases and pH, metals and non-metals, carbon compounds (Ch 1–4)
Biology basics: life processes, nutrition, human body systems, heredity (Ch 5–8)
Ecosystems: food chains, trophic levels, the 10 per cent law and biomagnification (Ch 13 Our Environment)
Environmental issues: ozone depletion by CFCs, climate change, waste management and conservation
Trophic level
Ozone depletion
pH scale
Biomagnification
General science
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