AIIMS CRE Syllabus, Exam Pattern, Eligibility

Five one-way sections

The paper runs as five sections of 20 questions and 18 minutes, one at a time. When a section's 18 minutes are up it's locked and never comes back, and the next opens automatically. That's 54 seconds a question, with no going back to a skipped one later.

Negative marking

The advertisement says "a negative marking of 1/4 marks for each wrong answer" and doesn't say whether that's 0.25 of a mark or a quarter of the question's 4 marks (1 mark).

Qualifying marks

AIIMS can also cap the qualified list by vacancies, category-wise.

Medium

Normalisation and ties

Multi-shift papers are normalised under Notice No. 35/2023 of 20 January 2023. Ties go to higher domain marks, then fewer wrong answers, then the older candidate, then alphabetical order of the candidate's, father's and mother's names.

AIIMS publishes no topic list, weighting or model paper. Section IX of the advertisement names the domain for each group's 80 questions, set "in accordance with the level of education qualification and experience" for the post in Annexure-I. So the syllabus is the curriculum of the qualification the post asks for, at that level.

That's the first ten. CRE-5 had 39 groups, numbered 1 to 58 with gaps. Later groups include Dispensing Attendant, Cashier and Junior Accounts Officer, Junior Store Officer, Dissection Hall Attendant, Junior Medical Laboratory Technologist, Library and Information Assistant, Coding Clerk, Personal Assistant, Counsellor, Technical Officer (Dental), Radiotherapy Technician, Dark Room Assistant, Assistant Security Officer, Assistant Research Officer, Multi Rehabilitation Worker, Junior Medical Record Officer, Junior Warden, Senior Nursing Officer, Caretaker and Sanitary Inspector, Junior Hindi Translator, Nuclear Medicine Technologist, Lift Operator, Modeller and Artist, Workshop Technician Grade II, Junior Cardiac and EEG Technician, Fire Technician and Security cum Fire Staff, and Social Security Officer and Manager.

The other 20 questions, the same for every group, are General Knowledge and Aptitude, and Knowledge of Computer.

Skill tests

Where a group has one, it's qualifying only; merit stays on CBT marks. Some posts in Annexure-V have a Physical Standards Test and Physical Efficiency Test: height at least 167 cm for men and 157 cm for women (5 cm and 2 cm less for hill-area residents), chest 80 cm with 5 cm expansion for men, vision 6/12 in both eyes without glasses and no colour blindness, then a 50-mark efficiency test needing 25 to pass, including a long jump of 3.3 metres for men and 2.6 metres for women in three chances.

Eligibility belongs to each institute. Annexure-I of the advertisement (pages 26 to 109 in CRE-5) gives every post's institute, age limit, pay level and qualifications, and they differ between institutes for the same post. Where an institute's rules say "AIIMS", they mean that institute, so experience counts only at that organisation.

Age

Reckoned on the closing date of registration, 3 July 2026 for CRE-5. Upper limits are per post.

PwBD age concession applies whether or not the post is reserved for PwBD, if it's identified as suitable (DoPT memorandum of 6 September 2022).

Reservation trap

• An SC, ST or OBC candidate applying against unreserved vacancies gets no age relaxation and no relaxed cut-off.
• If you're only eligible thanks to an age relaxation, you're considered only for your own category's seats, even with unreserved-level marks.

Vacancies

Annexure-II lists vacancies post by post and institute by institute. There's no grand total printed; adding the rows gives 2,693 posts across 561 rows. Most rows are one or two posts: Group 1 has ten rows across seven institutes, eighteen posts in all, and eight of those rows are for one or two.

Qualification rules

Distance learning counts only from universities set up by an Act of Parliament or State Legislature, deemed universities under Section 3 of the UGC Act, or other bodies the advertisement names.

Nothing is checked before the exam. Eligibility is provisional, and if it fails at any stage, even after joining, the candidature is cancelled.

1. One Time Registration. A duplicate or different candidate ID gets the application rejected.
2. Online application per group, each with its own fee.
3. Computer Based Test, with no eligibility check first.
4. Skill test where the group has one, qualifying only.
5. Merit list on CBT marks alone, normalised across shifts.
6. Choices, invited after the result.
7. Seat allocation by merit against choices.
8. Document verification by the allocated institute.
9. Joining by the given date.

Choices

• You rank the institutes your application says you're eligible for; nobody checks yet.
• An institute you don't choose won't consider you.
• Miss the choice deadline and you're not allocated anywhere.

If you don't report to an allocated seat, for any reason, your candidature for the whole exam is cancelled. Only list institutes you're eligible for, have certificates for and will join.

Document verification

The allocated institute sets the dates. Bring originals and one self-attested copy of the registration slip, admit card, date of birth proof, caste or income and asset certificate, disability certificate, any other age relaxation certificate, NOC if you're in government, PSU or autonomous body service, qualifications and experience certificates. You're assumed to hold them all on the day you applied, and no extra time is given.

Posting is the institute's call. You can be removed during probation if found unfit. Disputes go to Delhi courts only.

Misconduct that brings legal action and debarment includes bribes or pressure, impersonation, sharing questions, looking at another screen, clicking through questions without reading them, fake documents, false details just to sit the exam for practice, and morphed photos.

Pay is set per post and institute as a Pay Level in Annexure-I, with the usual allowances under each institute's rules. There's no single CRE pay scale because there's no single employer.

The levels non-faculty Group B and C posts usually sit at, from the 7th CPC pay matrix:

The first figure is the entry pay; the second is the top of the level.

The posts are regular, not contractual, subject to probation, with posting decided by the institute. Groups are drawn by domain, not grade, so posts in one group can sit at different levels.

Apply only on aiimsexams.ac.in, through One Time Registration (OTR). Don't post any documents; they'll be destroyed.

• Pay by card or net banking; bank charges extra.
• Not refunded, even if you turn out ineligible, except that SC and ST candidates who sit the exam get it back after the result.
• Each group needs its own application and fee.

You upload a photograph, signature and left thumb impression (morphed images count as misconduct), give experience details showing pay and duties, and submit a No Objection Certificate if you work for government or a government-funded body.

No corrections and no extensions. Corrections by email or letter aren't considered.

AIIMS authorises no agent, coaching centre, social media channel, WhatsApp or Telegram group or third party website for recruitment or payment.

The conducting body is the Examination Section, AIIMS New Delhi, 1st Floor, Convergence Block, Sri Aurobindo Marg, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110029. It runs the exam and allocates seats; it employs nobody through CRE.

The twenty two AIIMS

The ten other central bodies

The same post often appears at several institutes with one or two seats each. Group 2's Assistant posts, for instance, are spread across ICMR's headquarters and its institutes at Bhubaneswar, Dibrugarh, Dwarka, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Belagavi. Listing only nearby institutes leaves you few seats; listing all of them commits you to going anywhere.

The test is held in all major states and union territories, if enough people apply. You pick a state, but AIIMS can send you to any city and won't discuss it.

If a group gets fewer than 500 applications, its exam may be held separately and only in Delhi and the NCR, with ten days' notice.

Skill tests are held at a few places, preferably Delhi and the NCR. You may have to sit more than one shift or day if you applied to several groups.

PwBD candidates can use a scribe under Ministry of Social Justice rules, with Appendix A certificates submitted by the scheduled date. Your own scribe must be one step below your qualification. In a skill test the scribe may only read and click, not answer.

CRE-5, Notice No. 93/2026

No extensions of any kind. The exam date is tentative and AIIMS can change date or mode with ten days' notice. Choices open after the qualified list, and document verification dates come from each allocated institute.

CRE runs often: four cycles in about eighteen months. Watch the CRE cycle page rather than waiting for a fixed month. As at 12 September 2026, CRE-5 was the latest.

The admit card is released on aiimsexams.ac.in 3 days before the exam; the city comes 7 days before that. It isn't posted. Hand it to the invigilator at the centre, so keep your own copy, since document verification asks for one.

It's issued "without any verification of eligibility" and guarantees nothing. Skill tests have a separate admit card.

1. CBT result and qualified list.
2. Invitation to give choices, with the allocation rules.
3. Allocation result, seat by seat, with the reporting date.

Results are posted on the CRE-5 cycle page roll number by roll number, with marks. Document verification is done by the allocated institute, not AIIMS.

AIIMS fixes only the qualifying mark in advance (40, 35 and 30 per cent; see exam pattern). It doesn't publish a separate cut-off. If it uses its right to cap the qualified list by vacancies, the effective line rises above the qualifying mark; the result notice for your cycle will show which.

After that, each group, institute and category has its own closing mark, set by who chose what. With 2,693 posts over 561 rows, under five seats a row on average, there are a lot of small, jumpy lines. Marks are out of 400 and normalised across shifts.

The only real figures are in each cycle's result, posted with marks by roll number on the CRE cycle page. Don't carry a number across cycles or groups.

• Read Annexure-I for your post first. Note which institutes you're actually eligible for. That's your choice list later.
• Practise in 20-question, 18-minute blocks with a hard stop. A free-navigation 90-minute mock trains the wrong habit. Finish each block, including skipped questions, before it closes.
• Answer everything. A blind guess pays under either reading of the penalty.
• Put your time into the 80 domain questions. Domain marks are the first tie-break.
• Work from your qualification's curriculum, from the body that owns it: the Pharmacy Council of India for pharmacy, the National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions for lab technology, the Indian Nursing Council for nursing, the state board or AICTE for engineering diplomas.
• Build your own practice sets: an 80 plus 20 split, 4 marks a question, with a penalty. Past results, roll number by roll number, show where lines fell.
• Have every certificate before you apply, including the employer NOC by its own deadline.
• Treat choices as commitments. One institute you won't join can cost you the whole exam.
• Plan for Delhi if your group is small or has a skill test.

No sample papers or previous year papers are available for AIIMS CRE. AIIMS doesn't publish a syllabus, model paper or past paper, and anything sold as one isn't from AIIMS.

What it does publish is each cycle's results with marks by roll number, and the advertisement with each group's domain, on the CRE cycle page. New cycles have come every few months.

• Examination Section, AIIMS New Delhi: the only official site
• Recruitments: every exam the Section runs
• Common Recruitment Examination: index of CRE cycles
• CRE-5, Notice No. 93/2026: Advertisement, Notification and Result buttons
• Normalization procedure, Notice No. 35/2023

The PDF links inside the advertisement expire after seven days, so open the cycle page and use its buttons.

Does AIIMS employ me if I clear it?

Not necessarily. AIIMS New Delhi only conducts the exam. You're recruited by whichever of the 32 institutions you're allocated to, under its rules.

How many vacancies were there in CRE-5?

No total is printed. The Annexure-II tables add up to 2,693 posts over 39 groups.

What is the paper like?

100 questions, 400 marks, 90 minutes: 80 domain and 20 general, 4 marks each.

Can I go back to an earlier question?

No. Each 18-minute section locks when its time is up.

Is there negative marking?

Yes, "1/4 marks" per wrong answer, which could mean 0.25 or 1 mark. Guessing pays either way.

What is the fee?

Rs 3,000 for General and OBC, Rs 2,400 for SC, ST and EWS, nil for PwBD, per group. SC and ST candidates who sit get it refunded.

When do I choose my institute?

After the result. Miss the deadline and you're not allocated anywhere.

What happens if I am allocated a seat I do not want?

If you don't report, your candidature for the whole exam is cancelled.

Is a skill test part of the merit?

No, it's qualifying only.

Does the admit card mean I am eligible?

No. Eligibility is checked after allocation, and can be cancelled even after joining.

How often does CRE run?

Often: four cycles in about eighteen months.