EPFO SSA Exam pattern, Papers & Books

Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) conducts written exam for selection of Social Security Assistants (SSA) from time to time. T...

Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) conducts written exam for selection of Social Security Assistants (SSA) from time to time. This year too, EPFO SSA Exam is going to be conducted on 15th April,2012. How do you prepare for this exam? Where to find the prep materials - the sample papers & books for EPFO SSA Exam? This is the subject matter of this blog post. It points you to the sample papers & books for the SSA exam along with a discussion on the exam pattern, as given in the recruitment notification.

In another previous blog article titled: EPFO Recruitment 2012 (SSA) Notification, Eligibility & Forms, I had covered how to apply for this exam.

At first let us know that the job of a Social Security Assistant (SSA) in EPFO is something very similar to the clerical jobs in the banking industry. The job role as defined in the EPFO recruitment notification is: Maintenance of Accounts and Compliance Records and Settlement of Claims; Preparation of Reports, Cash Books, R & P Accounts etc. and assisting functions of EDP and Administration.

Therefore, as you would find out, EPFO SSA exam pattern (and also questions) is similar to Bank Clerical exam pattern and hence you may use the study materials of Bank Clerical exam as the study materials for EPF SSA written exam (this does not includes the Data entry operator test).

EPFO SSA exam pattern/ Selection procedure:

Selection process for SSA in EPFO is of two stage:
Stage-I: Written exam. From this exam, 3-times the number of vacancies would be shortlisted for Stage-II.
Stage-II:  Skill test (Data entry operator).

Pattern of EPFO Written test:

The Written exam consists of objective type questions from following four test areas:
i) Test of Reasoning,
ii) Test of Numerical ability,
iii) Test of office work aptitude.
iv) Test of English language.
You can find the test section-wise distribution of marks in the table at right. Test of English language is of qualifying nature only. Duration for this 200 question, 275 mark EPFO SSA exam is 2 hours.

On the other hand, Data entry operator test would assess your speed and accuracy in Data Entry Work. Minimum requirement set by EPFO is 5000 key depressions per hour. The mark allotted for this skill test is 50 and you need to score minimum 25 to qualify the same.

EPFO SSA exam sample papers:

I had tried hard to find previous years EPF SSA exam papers for you on the net – but could not locate any. However, I am very sure that following sample papers for bank clerical exam is going to help you prepare for the SSA exam.

Allinterview: It gives 130 model questions with answers.
Allexam: It gives 25 SBI Bank Clerk GK model questions with answers.
Edutalkindia: Numerical Ability/Maths samle Paper: 40 Q

Sample papers for EPFO SSA exam: Test of office work aptitude section:

Clerical Aptitude tests your ability to notice similarities and differences between pairs of names and numbers. Questions asked also assesses ability to handle office routine work, like filing, abbreviating, indexing etc. Following links should help you prepare for it:

Psytech
Psychometric-success: I particularly liked this site.
Personality-and-aptitude-career-tests

Skill test for EPFO SSA exam: Data entry operator test
How good are you in data entry work? This will be tested in the skill test of EPFO.

I had posted an earlier blog article titled: Data Entry Operators Skill Test, which explains you the technical terminologies of Data entry operator test as well as gives you the links to test yourself. You can use the same to know your data entry speed at present and  use the same to improve upon yourself.

Prep Books for EPFO SSA exam:

I also searched on the net for the available books for preparation of EPF SSA exam and found following books. These books are available in most of the bookstores, but you can also order them online by clicking the links below from Flipkart.com which offers huge discounts up to 25%, apart from free shipping/postage in India if the total order exceeds Rs. 200/=. You can choose to pay through Credit Card/Debit Card/Internet Banking. You can also choose to pay through “Cash-on-Delivery” i.e. you pay in cash only when the same is delivered at your doorstep:

EPFO Social Security Assistant Exam Practice Work Book by Kiran Prakashan
List Price: Rs. 225; Offer Price: Rs. 169; Discount: Rs. 56 (25%)

EPFO SSA Social Security Assistant Recruitment Examination by Upkar Prakashan
Price: Rs. 195

EPFO SSA exam Hindi Guide Books

EPFO Samajik Suraksha Sahayak Bharti Pariksha (Hindi) By R Gupta Publisher:RPH

List Price: Rs. 240; Offer Price: Rs. 202; Discount: Rs. 38 (16%)

EPFO Samajik Suraksha Sahayak Pariksha Practice Work Book (Hindi) by Kiran
List Price: Rs. 195; Offer Price: Rs. 156; Discount: Rs. 39 (20%)

This completes all the test areas of the EPFO SSA exam – with sample papers for preparation in each section and books. Hope you would find the same useful. Kindly let me know your SSA exam experience by posting your comments below. Also visit this blog again. If I spot any more prep materials for EPFO SSA exam, I would post the same here.