The departmental tests: the exams of probation

Probation is not declared because time has passed. Under Rule 16(c) of the Telangana State & Subordinate Service Rules, 1996, a direct recruit must put in two years on duty within a continuous period of three years — and under Rule 16(e), must pass every test the special rules prescribe. For a Deputy Collector the special rules are the Telangana Civil Services (Executive Branch) Rules, 1992 — the AP CS (Ex.Br.) Rules 1992 as adopted for Telangana by G.O.Ms.No. 191, GA (Ser.C) Department, dt. 27-05-2016, which also adopted the Telangana Departmental Test Rules, 1965. One caution the reader deserves upfront: the full text of the Ex.Br. Rules 1992 — the rule or annexure that formally enumerates the Deputy Collector’s test list — is not available online (unverified as of August 2026); the list below is assembled from TGPSC’s own notifications and the standard AP/Telangana scheme, and matches what your batch’s joining instructions will say. Verify against them.

The full slate

Test	Paper code(s)	Mode	Marks / pass
Revenue Test Part-I (two papers)	18 (Paper-I, Common Acts) and 27 (Paper-II, Regional Acts)	Objective CBT, with books, 2 hrs each	100 / minimum 40 in each
Revenue Test Part-II	43	Objective CBT, with books	100 / 40
Revenue Test Part-III	62	Objective CBT, with books	100 / 40
Accounts Test for Executive Officers (EOT)	141	Objective CBT, with books	100 / 40
Translation Test (both papers at one sitting)	19 & 28	Descriptive, 3 hrs each, in the chosen language (Telugu, Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Oriya or Marathi)	100 / 40 each
Principles of Revenue Survey, Division-D (Higher Standard)	no departmental-test paper code — sits in the Half-Yearly Examinations	Conventional, March/September terms	see the survey page
Telugu language test (Rule 13, S&SS Rules; the Second Class Language Test is paper code 5)	5 (written Part-A plus viva Parts B–D, all at one sitting)	Descriptive + viva	exemption possible at age 45

The first five travel together through TGPSC’s regular departmental-test machinery. The survey paper lives in a different examination altogether, and the Telugu test is a service-wide language requirement rather than a departmental subject. Each has its own page in this section.

Two calendars, not one

TGPSC runs two separate streams, and confusing them costs a term:

1. Departmental Tests — May and November sessions each year, under the Departmental Test Rules 1965. This is where the Revenue Tests, EOT and the Translation Test sit. The November-2025 session (Notification 04/2025) ran its CBTs from 08 to 16 November 2025 with results in December; the May-2026 session was notified on 26-02-2026 (Notification 02/2026). The notification comes roughly two to three months before the exams — the application window closes fast.
2. Half-Yearly Examinations — March and September terms, meant for probationers of the All-India and State Civil/Police Services. This is where the Deputy Collector’s Division-D Revenue Survey paper (Higher Standard) sits. TGPSC’s own Half-Yearly notification says it plainly: “Probationary Deputy Collectors have to pass the test in Division-D – Principles of Revenue Survey by the Higher standard included in the Half-yearly examinations. They need not apply for any other Tests” — meaning your other tests belong to the May/November stream, not this one.

So a well-run probation touches four examination windows a year. Missing a May session does not merely delay one test by six months; it can cascade into the probation clock itself.

How the exams actually run

Since about 2022 every departmental test except the language and survey papers is an objective-type computer-based test: online, 2 hours, 100 marks, minimum pass 40 marks (40%). The revenue and accounts papers are conducted “with books” — you carry the bare Acts and codes into the hall; guides, made-easy compilations and model papers are not allowed. Question papers are in English (the Translation and Survey papers are also in the chosen language). The Translation, language and survey papers remain conventional descriptive exams, 3 hours, answered in OMR-attached booklets. On negative marking the notifications are simply silent — nothing in the 2025–26 notifications indicates any, but treat that as unverified rather than settled.

The logistics: exams are held only within HMDA limits — Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy and Medchal-Malkajgiri districts — so a probationer posted in Adilabad or Bhadradri travels for every session. The fee is ₹200 per paper plus ₹400 application-processing fee per test, paid online; you apply with a DTE ID at tgpsc.gov.in. Results come as a results bulletin on the TGPSC website — under G.O.Ms.No. 591, GA (Ser.A), dt. 20-10-2011, that bulletin is itself the authentic publication for extending all benefits to provisionally passed candidates, pending Gazette publication. No individual pass certificates are issued; the bulletin entry is your proof, so save it.

What passing — and failing — means

The consequences live in the S&SS Rules 1996, and they are worth knowing cold:

• Rule 16(e): passing the prescribed tests is a condition of probation itself, not an add-on.
• Rule 17(b): probation may be extended for failure to pass within time.
• Rule 16(f): failure without an extension order means discharge from service. It is rare, but it is the rule the extension order is protecting you from.
• Rule 16(h): a probationer who passes late gets the probation-commencement date notionally re-fixed to an anterior date once the tests are through — and seniority in the cadre is set by that re-fixed date. Two officers of the same batch can end up a year apart in the seniority list on nothing but test performance.
• Rule 13: failing the Telugu language test extends probation and postpones increments without cumulative effect until the pass — the one test whose failure reaches directly into the pay slip. More generally, no increment is admissible until tests prescribed as an increment condition in the special rules are passed.
• Rule 18: the safety valve — if no extension or discharge order issues within the prescribed time (the order is due within 8 weeks, and probation is deemed satisfactorily completed if no order issues within one year of expiry), completion is deemed.

TGPSC’s instructions for probationer examinations cite two chances per prescribed test — the margin is thinner than the May/November rhythm makes it feel.

The 2025–26 watchlist

Three moving parts as of August 2026. First, TGPSC has issued an addendum incorporating the BNS in place of the IPC for the September-2026 term (Notification 03/2026) — directly relevant to the criminal-law divisions probationers write. Second, the Commission was renamed TSPSC → TGPSC in 2024; notifications and the portal now carry the TGPSC banner, but the syllabus PDFs still largely carry pre-reorganisation Act names. Third — and unverified as a watch item — despite the Bhu Bharati Act (Act 1 of 2025) replacing the RoR framework from April 2025, the Revenue Test syllabus still lists the old 1358 Fasli RoR Regulation and its cousins; no G.O. updating the syllabus was traceable as of 22-08-2026. Until one issues, the exam tests the old law even where the field runs on the new — see the syllabus page. One more unverified note: under AP orders (G.O.Ms.No. 411, dt. 18-07-2011) a pass in the Accounts Test for Subordinate Officers Parts I & II exempts a candidate from the EOT, but not vice versa; whether Telangana currently applies this has not been confirmed.

Strategy: with-books changes what “prepared” means

A with-books objective exam cannot be crammed and cannot be winged; it rewards exactly one skill — knowing the architecture of each Act so well that any question becomes a fifteen-second retrieval. You will not have time to read provisions in the hall; you will only have time to find them. So prepare by mapping, not memorising: for each statute, learn the chapter scheme, which sections carry the operative powers, where the definitions sit, where the penalties and appeals sit, and which Board Standing Orders attach to it. Tab and index your bare Acts — a physical thumb-index is worth more than a month of passive reading. Then drill the map with old papers against the clock: the failing candidates are rarely the ones who knew too little law, but the ones who spent four minutes hunting for one proviso. The deeper payoff is that this is the same skill the job needs — the officer who can put a finger on Section 7 of the Encroachment Act in an exam hall can do it in a peshi too.

Field notes for a probationer

Diarise all four windows for the year — the two departmental sessions and the two half-yearly terms — the day the joining instructions arrive, and apply in the first available session for everything you are eligible to write. The Rule 16(h) arithmetic is unforgiving: every session skipped is six months of notional seniority at risk, and with effectively two chances per test, the first attempt is not a trial run.