APPSC Assistant Director (Mines) 2026 — Official Computer Proficiency Test (CPT) Syllabus

Notification 31/2026, brief notification pages 6–10; G.O.Ms.No.26, General Administration (Ser.B), dated 24 February 2023.

CPT checks office automation and the practical use of computers and associated software. Unlike the Mining Engineering written paper, it assesses whether a candidate can handle digital documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The official table specifies 60 minutes, 100 marks and separate qualifying marks by category.

Exam format and minimum marks

📊 Compare the published qualifying thresholds

These figures are minimum qualifications in the CPT, not predicted written-exam cut-offs. In particular, the table's mention of PBD is a CPT qualifying bracket and does not itself establish a vacancy reserved for PBD in this one-post recruitment.

The published five-part assessment pattern

🥧 The five published CPT components within 100 marks

The wording of the annexure says a typing speed assessment may be made mandatory for qualifying according to existing norms; it does not give a universal, fixed words-per-minute standard in the supplied notice. Therefore no assumed 25/30/35 WPM cut-off is added here.

Part-A: computer foundations — eight syllabus blocks

1. Computer equipment and input/output: Components, peripheral devices, storage, RAM, ROM, control unit and arithmetic-logic unit; the differences among input, processing and output functions.
2. Software families: System, application, embedded, proprietary and open-source software, with their stated purposes and attributes.
3. Operating systems: What an OS does; single- and multi-user operating-system ideas.
4. Windows and graphical interfaces: GUI versus CUI, folders/files, application launch and peripheral setup.
5. Linux and macOS basics: File and directory operations, user management, permissions and introductory commands.
6. Internet concepts: Browsers, IP address, networking requirements, protocols and file upload/download.
7. Email: Compose, send/receive, recipient addresses, mailing lists and everyday email operations.
8. World Wide Web: Web navigation, online searches and the use of web resources.

The question list gives subject areas, not a separate mark count for each of the eight blocks.

Part-B: office software — operations that distinguish a practical test

Word processing and document preparation

The notice specifically allows MS Word or supported open-source equivalents such as LibreOffice/OpenOffice. Practise editing and saving, page setup, finding/replacing text, headers/footers, page numbers, tables, merged/split cells, margins, styles, hyperlinks, mail merge and print preparation. The scope includes both keyboard-driven editing and inserting diagrams, images, symbols and other objects.

Spreadsheets and data presentation

The spreadsheet section covers cell editing, formulas and functions, references, sorting, charts, formatting, conditional preparation and using worksheet data as a table or database. The test's assessment scheme separately allots 20% to making and formatting a spreadsheet and its graphs. This is a practical task, not merely reciting the definition of a spreadsheet.

Presentation building

Prepare slides using layouts and templates, text/graphics/tables, images, transitions and animations; know how to set up and deliver a slide show and print presentation elements. Twenty percent of the assessment pattern addresses creating and formatting a presentation.

How to practise without guessing the actual test

A compact self-test is to create a one-page formatted report, insert a table and image, complete a spreadsheet with a total/average and a chart, and build a short presentation from that same data. That exercise maps to the official practical areas but is not an APPSC sample paper and does not claim to predict the tasks on exam day.

Status: The brief includes no CPT date, admit card release date, actual test tasks, or candidate shortlist. Only the published structure and syllabus are treated as confirmed.