Bihar Police Forest Guard Syllabus, Exam Pattern

The paper is at the Intermediate (10+2) standard of the Bihar School Examination Board, but the Mathematics and General Science questions are set at matriculation level. Except for the Hindi questions, every question appears in both Hindi and English.

The negative marking, and it is heavy

1. Each question has four options, and one third of the marks allotted to it is deducted for a wrong answer. At 4 marks a question that is 1.33 marks, so three wrong answers cancel a correct one.
2. More than one answer counts as a wrong answer, even if one of them is correct, and the same penalty applies.
3. A blank question carries no penalty at all.

With a qualifying bar of 40 per cent for the General category on a 400-mark paper, loose guessing is expensive and leaving a question alone is genuinely free.

The OMR sheet

The candidate fills in the required particulars according to the instructions printed on the sheet: the roll number, the question booklet number, the paragraph to be written out and the signature. Then the consequence: if the compulsory information is not filled in, or is entered incorrectly, the candidature is automatically treated as cancelled and the answer sheet is not evaluated, and the Board states it will not be responsible. An unevaluated answer sheet, with no remedy.

The syllabus does not come from the advertisement, and that matters. It is prescribed by Environment, Forest and Climate Change Department notification 1756/P.Van of 18 June 2018, and published on the Board's website under Syllabus, in the tab Syllabus for Forest Guard in Env., Forest and Climate Change, where the syllabus and the classification of marks are given in detail for advertisement 01/2019. That same syllabus applies, and it can be downloaded from csbc.bihar.gov.in. So it is stable across advertisements rather than rewritten each cycle.

What each part covers

Part 1, 30 questions, 120 marks. Current events of national and international importance, the history of India and the Indian national movement, geography, Indian polity and governance, and economic and social development.

Part 2, 25 questions, 100 marks. Basic numeracy at tenth class level, interpretation of data and data sufficiency.

Part 3, 25 questions, 100 marks. General science, the environment, ecology, biodiversity, and general issues relating to climate change. The advertisement's own words are the safest guide and they are specific: not forestry technique, not silviculture, not the Forest Acts, but general science and general environmental issues at school level.

Part 4, 20 questions, 80 marks. Hindi. The advertisement states the purpose rather than the topic: to test the ability to express one's own thoughts correctly in Hindi and to read and understand serious reasoned prose, through comprehension of given passages, word usage and vocabulary, and Hindi grammar.

Reading the weights

Part 1 is the largest block and it is general studies, the same ground a state services preliminary paper covers. A quarter of the paper belongs to the hiring department itself, which is what distinguishes it from a police constable paper. And a fifth is Hindi alone: the Forest Guard paper has no English section, while the Forester paper does.

Indian citizenship is compulsory. The educational qualification is a pass in Intermediate (10+2) or an equivalent examination from a recognised Board, University or Council, with no stream prescribed and no minimum percentage. That is the difference from Forester, which requires Intermediate Science.

Age

Computed from the date of birth as recorded in the matriculation or equivalent certificate, and from nothing else.

The EWS row follows from section 4(1) of the Bihar (Economically Weaker Sections) Reservation Act, 2019: the provision is in addition to the reservation prescribed for reserved categories by any other Act in force in the state, so an EWS candidate takes the General age limit rather than a relaxed one. An upper limit of 23 for General is low, two years tighter than Forester.

There is one relaxation: Government servants of the Government of Bihar who have completed at least three years of regular service by the cut-off date get up to five years.

The physical standards

These are forest standards, not police standards, and they include something no police recruitment asks for: a walking capacity.

No chest measurement and no minimum weight is prescribed for women. And the women's minimum height outside SC and ST is 160 cm, five centimetres more than the Bihar Police constable recruitments ask, so the forest service is not simply borrowing the police standards. The walk is an endurance standard and it has no counterpart in the Board's police recruitments, which test a mile run, jumps and a shot put instead.

The rule that catches candidates from other states

Under the fourth proviso to clause 4(2) of Bihar Act 3 of 1992, as updated, candidates from outside Bihar cannot claim the benefit of reservation. Such a candidate is counted as Unreserved (General), with the General age limit and qualifications, and must declare themselves General in the application form, failing which the application is automatically cancelled.

The freedom fighter quota is horizontal: a candidate selected under the 2 per cent reservation for the grandchildren of freedom fighters is counted within whichever category they belong to, not against an additional set of posts.

Two stages, and only the first one scores.

1. Written examination. 400 marks. This alone makes the merit list.
2. Physical examination and medical check. Qualifying only, no marks.

Applications are scrutinised first, and the written examination is held for the candidates whose forms are found in order. The paper is one hundred objective questions for 400 marks in two hours, on an OMR sheet, with heavy negative marking; see the exam pattern section for the four parts and the rules.

Who gets to the ground

A candidate must first clear a category-wise qualifying minimum, running from 40 per cent for General down to 32 per cent for SC, ST and women of every category. Anyone below it is declared disqualified and is not permitted to take part in the physical examination. The figures and the marks they work out to are in the cut-off section.

From among those who clear it, twice the advertised vacancies, a ratio of 1:2, are selected meritwise for each reservation category. That is the tightest shortlist the Board applies anywhere; its police constable recruitments call three or five times the vacancies.

Stage two: the physical examination and the medical check

• Conducted by a committee constituted by the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Bihar, not by the Board.
• Being found fit is compulsory. A candidate not meeting the minimum prescribed standard is declared unsuccessful.
• No relaxation whatever is allowed in the minimum physical standards.
• A medical examination runs alongside the measurement, under Rule 4(iii) of Appendix "ka" of the Bihar Subordinate Forest Service Rules, 2013. The Forester recruitment cites Rule 5(iii) of Appendix "kha" of the same rules.

The merit list and the tie-break

The merit list is prepared meritwise and category-wise on the written examination marks alone. The physical examination carries no marks and cannot improve a position. Ties break first on date of birth, with the older candidate placed higher, and then, where marks and date of birth are both equal, on educational qualification, the higher qualification placed higher.

The same service and the same board recruit directly to Forester (Vanpal) at Level 5, ₹29,200 to ₹92,300, which needs Intermediate Science rather than any stream. The two were advertised in the same season as separate advertisements with separate papers, so a candidate eligible for both applies to both, separately.

The advertisement prints the level and the band and nothing further. Allowances, and therefore the figure actually received each month, follow the Bihar Government's rules for the post and the place of posting.

Worth stating alongside the pay, because it is unusual: the physical standard includes a walking capacity of 25 kilometres in four hours for men and 14 for women, with no relaxation. The forest service tests endurance rather than the sprint, jump and throw the police recruitments test, and the standard reflects the patrolling the post involves.

Applications are made online only, on the Board's website, in the prescribed form. Applications received by any other means, including ordinary post and speed post, are not accepted, and paying the prescribed examination fee is compulsory.

Those are the dates of the last advertised cycle. No fresh advertisement is currently open, and the window for the next one will be published with it at csbc.bihar.gov.in.

Have ready before filling the form

• The matriculation or equivalent certificate, because the date of birth on it is what fixes your age.
• The Intermediate (10+2) or equivalent pass certificate and mark sheet.
• For reserved categories, the caste certificate from the competent authority of the State Government, and the permanent residence certificate.
• For EWS, the certificate under the Bihar (Economically Weaker Sections) Reservation Act, 2019.
• For the freedom fighter quota, the certificate showing you to be the grandson, granddaughter or daughter's child of a freedom fighter of Bihar whose pension is sanctioned by the Central Government.
• For serving Bihar Government employees claiming the five-year relaxation, proof of three years of regular service by the cut-off date.

One declaration catches candidates from other states. Reservation under the Bihar Act is not available to them, so they are counted as General and must declare themselves General on the form. If they do not, the application is automatically cancelled.

CSBC is best known for constable recruitment, but it recruits for seven organisations, each with its own page and its own service rules: Bihar Police, Bihar Fire Services, the Home (Prisons) Department, Bihar Home Guards, the Prohibition Department, the Forest Department and the Transport Department. The forest posts sit under Forest Dept. and are governed by the forest service rules rather than the Bihar Police Manual.

An address that has changed

The advertisements of this cycle give the Board's address as Sardar Patel Bhawan, 6th floor, Block A/626, Jawaharlal Nehru Marg, Patna 800023, with the website www.csbc.bih.nic.in. Both have changed. The Board is now at 05 Harding Road, Patna 800001, its site is csbc.bihar.gov.in, and on 12 May 2026 it issued a notice about the address of a newly developed official website alongside it. A candidate following a link printed in an old advertisement will not arrive anywhere useful.

The rules behind the recruitment

Both forest posts are recruited under the Bihar Subordinate Forest Service Rules, 2013, Bihar Gazette (Patna 694) of 4 September 2013, as amended in 2014. The written examination's syllabus and format are fixed separately, by department notification 1756/P.Van of 18 June 2018, which is why the paper's shape does not change between advertisements.

The Board examines; the forest department itself measures and examines the candidates medically, through a committee its own head constitutes.

Dates move. In the last cycle the PET schedule was notified on 1 December 2021, postponed on 5 January 2022, rescheduled on 24 March 2022 to 18, 19 and 20 April 2022, and a new medical test date was notified on 9 May 2022. Every one of those was announced by a notice on the Board's Forest Dept. page and nowhere else, so read the site rather than a date circulating elsewhere.

Take the e-admit card for that stage and originals for verification of educational qualification, age and reservation claims. The physical venue applies height, chest and chest expansion for men, height for women, and the walking capacity of 25 km in four hours for men and 14 for women, with no relaxation in any of it.

Close to two years from the opening of applications to the final result, with the written result arriving eight months after applications closed and the physical test postponed once and rescheduled once before it was held. Plan on a long process and on dates that move by notice.

No fresh advertisement is open. The vacancy count, the application window and the age cut-off dates of the next cycle will be fixed by the next requisition, and none of the figures here carry forward except the ones prescribed by the service rules and the syllabus notification. Watch the Board's Forest Dept. page.

CSBC issues admit cards online only, through links on its own website, and issues a separate one for each stage: a notice and e-admit card for the written examination, then a separate PET e-admit card after the written result.

For the earlier Forest Guard advertisement the Board published, on 20 May 2019, a notice about the written examination scheduled for 16 June 2019, together with a specimen OMR for the convenience of candidates. Find it. On this paper an incorrectly filled answer sheet is not evaluated at all, and seeing the sheet in advance is the cheapest insurance against that. What has to go on it is the roll number, the question booklet number, the paragraph to be written out and the signature.

Before the admit card, CSBC publishes a list of invalid applications with the reason for rejection, and correction windows for discrepancies in photograph, signature and gender found during scrutiny. A candidate whose admit card does not appear should look for those notices first.

The Board also runs standing notices warning candidates against telephone calls demanding money in exchange for fraudulent assurances, and publishes rebuttals of fake news about its recruitments.

All of them sit on the Board's Forest Dept. page, alongside the notices on the physical examination schedule and its postponements, the medical test dates, and selections decided after the final result.

Why the written result is close to the final result

Two features make this recruitment unusually predictable once the written marks are out. The merit list is built on those marks alone, since the physical stage scores nothing. And only two candidates per post reach that stage. So a candidate's position in the written result is, barring a failure on the ground, close to their final position. That is unlike the Board's Driver Constable recruitment, where the written paper is purely a gate and a separate scored test decides everything.

Two lines have to be crossed, and only the first is published in advance.

The qualifying minimum, which varies by category

Note the last row: the 32 per cent reaches women of every category, not only SC and ST women.

What the negative marking does to those numbers

At 4 marks a question and 1.33 off for a wrong answer, three wrong answers cancel one correct answer. To reach 160 as a General candidate, 40 correct and nothing else attempted gets there exactly, while 40 correct and 30 wrong falls to 120, well below the line. A blank costs nothing, so there is no reason to guess between four options with no information.

The second line

Clearing the category minimum is not enough. Only twice the advertised vacancies go forward to the physical examination, meritwise within each reservation category, and that line is not published in advance. It moves with the paper and the field, and the physical stage cannot raise or lower it because it carries no marks.

The real figures for a given cycle are in the Board's own written examination result and final result, kept on its Forest Dept. page. Those documents are the only accurate record of where the line fell.

Prepare for the right paper

CSBC advertised Forest Guard and Forester in the same season and the papers have almost nothing in common.

This is a general studies paper. Half of it, Parts 1 and 2, is the ground a state services preliminary paper covers.

Check bought material against the real paper

It should be 100 questions for 400 marks, deduct one third for a wrong answer, weight its parts 30, 25, 25 and 20 rather than Forester's 15, 15, 50 and 20, and have no English section.

Do not guess

A wrong answer costs 1.33 marks, so three of them cancel a correct one, and a blank costs nothing. Note the second rule too: marking more than one answer counts as wrong, even if one of the marks is on the right option. On an OMR sheet a stray mark is a penalty.

Fill the OMR header correctly, and check it twice

If the compulsory information is missing or wrong, the candidature is cancelled, the sheet is not evaluated, and the Board is not responsible. Find the Board's specimen OMR, published with the admit card notice, and practise on it.

Take the environment section seriously

A quarter of the paper is general science, environment, ecology, biodiversity and climate change. It is the part that belongs to the department doing the hiring, and the part most general competitive-examination material covers least well. The framing is general and school-level, not technical forestry.

Remember which parts are set at which level

The paper as a whole is at Intermediate standard, but Mathematics and General Science are set at matriculation level. Every question except the Hindi ones appears in both Hindi and English. And Hindi is 80 marks, with no English section at all.

Check your age early

The General upper limit is 23, two years lower than Forester. It is 25 for BC and EBC and 28 for SC and ST, and an EWS candidate takes the General limit. Age comes from the matriculation certificate and nothing else.

Train for the walk, not for a sprint

25 kilometres in four hours for men, 14 for women, with no relaxation. That is roughly a six-kilometre-an-hour march sustained for four hours, trained for quite differently from the mile run and jumps of the police recruitments. Check the measurements before you apply, and note that the women's height standard is five centimetres higher than the police recruitments ask.

If you are from another state, declare yourself General

Reservation under the Bihar Act is not available to candidates from outside Bihar. Declare General on the form, or the application is automatically cancelled. Then use the Board's own syllabus page: the detailed syllabus with the classification of marks is free, it is what the notification of 18 June 2018 prescribes, and it does not change between advertisements.

No previous year papers are available for this recruitment as of now. CSBC publishes the detailed syllabus with the classification of marks under Syllabus on csbc.bihar.gov.in, and a specimen OMR sheet with each admit card notice. Results of the 2020 cycle stay on its Forest Dept. page.

• Advertisement No. 03/2020, the authority on everything here: the 484 vacancies at pay level 3, the Intermediate qualification, the age limits and the five-year relaxation for serving state employees, the physical standards including the walking capacity, the four-part paper of 100 questions for 400 marks, the one-third negative marking, the OMR rules, the category-wise qualifying minimums, the 1:2 shortlist ratio and the merit rule
• The Board's Forest Dept. page, which carries every advertisement, admit card link, notice and result for this recruitment: the written result of 19 April 2021, the PET schedule of 1 December 2021 with its postponement and rescheduling, the medical test date of 9 May 2022, the final result of 30 June 2022 and the notice of 8 May 2024
• Central Selection Board of Constable (CSBC), Bihar, now at 05 Harding Road, Patna 800001. The advertisements of this cycle print the Board's older address and the older website www.csbc.bih.nic.in, and on 12 May 2026 the Board issued a notice about a newly developed official website alongside the current one. The detailed syllabus, with the classification of marks, sits on this site under Syllabus
• The Bihar Subordinate Forest Service Rules, 2013, Bihar Gazette (Patna 694) of 4 September 2013, as amended by the Amendment Rules, 2014, Bihar Gazette (Patna 299) of 13 March 2014, under which both forest posts are recruited and the medical examination is conducted
• Advertisement No. 04/2020 for Forester (Vanpal), the companion recruitment at Level 5 with a science paper, and Advertisement No. 01/2019, the earlier Forest Guard advertisement whose syllabus still applies

Who conducts the Bihar Forest Guard recruitment?

The Central Selection Board of Constable (CSBC), Bihar, on the requisition of the Environment, Forest and Climate Change Department. The Board is best known for police recruitment but recruits for seven organisations, the Forest Department among them.

Is a recruitment open now?

No. The last cycle was Advt. No. 03/2020, which concluded with the final result of 30 June 2022. The rules described here are the published rules for the post, but the vacancy count, the dates and the age cut-off dates will be set afresh by the next advertisement.

How many vacancies were advertised?

484, at pay level 3, ₹21,700 to ₹69,100.

What is the exam pattern?

One paper in four parts, 100 objective questions, two hours, OMR answer sheet. Each correct answer carries 4 marks, so the maximum is 400. Part 1 is 30 questions on current events, Indian history and the national movement, geography, polity and economic and social development; Part 2 is 25 on numeracy at tenth class level, data interpretation and data sufficiency; Part 3 is 25 on general science, environment, ecology, biodiversity and climate change; Part 4 is 20 on Hindi.

Is there negative marking?

Yes, and it is heavy. One third of a question's marks comes off for a wrong answer, so 1.33 marks, and three wrong answers cancel a correct one. Marking more than one answer counts as wrong even if one of them is right. A blank carries no penalty.

What qualification do I need?

A pass in Intermediate (10+2) or an equivalent examination from a recognised Board, University or Council. No stream and no minimum percentage. The Forester post, advertised separately, requires Intermediate Science.

What is the age limit?

18 to 23 for General and EWS, 18 to 25 for BC and EBC, and 18 to 28 for SC and ST. Age is computed from the date of birth on the matriculation certificate. EWS candidates take the General limit because section 4(1) of the Bihar (Economically Weaker Sections) Reservation Act, 2019 makes the EWS provision additional to existing reservation.

Is there any age relaxation?

One. Government servants of the Government of Bihar with at least three years of regular service by the cut-off date get up to five years.

What are the physical standards?

Men: height 165 cm, or 160 cm for SC and ST; chest 81 cm, or 79 cm for SC and ST, with a 5 cm minimum expansion. Women: height 160 cm, or 155 cm for SC and ST, with no chest measurement prescribed.

Is there a running test?

No. There is a walking test: 25 kilometres in four hours for men, 14 kilometres in four hours for women. It is an endurance standard with no counterpart in the Board's police recruitments, and no relaxation whatever is allowed in it.

Who conducts the physical examination?

A committee constituted by the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Bihar, not the Board. A medical examination runs alongside it, under the Bihar Subordinate Forest Service Rules, 2013.

What is the minimum mark in the written examination?

40 per cent for General, 36.5 for Backward Class, 34 for Backward Class Annexure-1, and 32 for SC, ST and women of every category. On a 400-mark paper, 160, 146, 136 and 128 marks.

How many candidates are called for the physical examination?

Twice the advertised vacancies, meritwise within each reservation category. That is tighter than the three or five times the Board applies in its police constable recruitments.

What decides the final merit list?

The written examination marks, and nothing else. The physical examination carries no marks. Ties break on date of birth, older placed higher, and then on educational qualification.

I am from another state and belong to a reserved category. What do I do?

Reservation under the Bihar Act is not available to candidates from outside Bihar. You are counted as General, with the General age limit, and you must declare yourself General on the form. If you do not, the application is automatically cancelled.

What happens if I fill the OMR sheet wrongly?

If the compulsory information is missing or entered incorrectly, the candidature is automatically cancelled and the answer sheet is not evaluated, and the Board states it will not be responsible. That covers the roll number, the question booklet number, the paragraph to be written out and the signature.

Where do I find the syllabus?

On the Board's website under Syllabus, in the tab for Forest Guard in the Environment, Forest and Climate Change Department. It carries the classification of marks as well as the topics, and it is prescribed by notification 1756/P.Van of 18 June 2018, so it does not change between advertisements.

How long does the process take?

In the last cycle, close to two years: applications closed 4 September 2020, the written result came on 19 April 2021, the physical test was postponed once and rescheduled once before being held in April 2022, and the final result was published on 30 June 2022.