October 19, 2026
Camino Prep Coach: What 369 Candidates Per Seat Actually Means for How You Should Study
1.268 million candidates appeared for SSC CHSL Tier 1 in 2024, for just 3,437 vacancies -- about 369 candidates per seat. Real spaced-repetition research shows why closing that margin is about retention, not raw hours. Here's how Coach's daily quiz, review queue, and installable app are built for exactly that.
- Vacancies 2,536 tentative vacancies (LDC, JSA, DEO, DEO Grade A) source
- Eligibility 12th pass (10+2); age 18-27 years as on 1 Aug 2026 (relaxation: OBC up to 30, SC/ST up to 32) source
- Exam pattern Tier 1: 100 Q / 200 marks / 60 min - English, General Intelligence, Quantitative Aptitude, General Awareness (25 Q / 50 marks each, 15-min sectional timer), -0.5 per wrong answer. Tier 2: Session 1 objective (Maths & Reasoning, English & GA, Computer Knowledge for DEO posts, -1 per wrong answer); Session 2 qualifying Skill/Typing Test. source
Exam format
- General Awareness — 25 questions
- Quantitative Aptitude — 25 questions
- General Intelligence — 25 questions
- English Language — 25 questions
- Mathematical Abilities (Tier 2) — 30 questions
- Reasoning & General Intelligence (Tier 2) — 30 questions
- English Language & Comprehension (Tier 2) — 40 questions
- General Awareness (Tier 2) — 20 questions
- Computer Knowledge (Tier 2) — 15 questions
Key dates
SSC's own 2024 data shows 12.68 lakh candidates actually appeared for CHSL Tier 1, competing for just 3,437 final vacancies. Divide those two numbers and the real picture emerges: roughly 369 candidates for every single seat. At that ratio, "I studied the whole syllabus" is table stakes -- nearly everyone in the room can say the same thing. What separates a selection from a near-miss is how much of that syllabus is still retrievable from memory on exam day.
1. Most self-study loses more than half of what it covers before exam day. A 2006 meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin (Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted & Rohrer) compared spaced review against massed, crammed practice across 271 study comparisons, holding total study time equal. Spaced review won 259 of them -- average final recall was 47.3% for spaced study versus 36.7% for massed/crammed study, a real, measured gap of roughly 10 percentage points in what actually sticks.
2. At 369 candidates per seat, a 10-point recall gap is not abstract. It is plausibly the exact margin between clearing Tier 1's cutoff and falling just short of it -- which makes retention strategy, not just syllabus coverage, a direct lever on your selection odds.
3. Coach's daily quiz draws from your own weak spots, across both tiers. Every subscriber's daily quiz is weighted toward the topics where their own practice-attempt history shows the lowest accuracy -- built from your real answer record on the platform, covering Tier 1's four equally-weighted sections and Tier 2's separate General Awareness and comprehension-based English.
4. The review queue is what actually closes the spaced-vs-crammed gap. A question you get wrong doesn't just disappear -- it resurfaces on a schedule. Answer it correctly and the interval before it returns grows; miss it again and it comes back sooner. That is the literal mechanism behind the 47.3%-vs-36.7% numbers above, running automatically in the background of your CHSL prep.
5. You can see your standing, not just your attempt count. Coach shows an estimated ranking among other subscribers preparing for the same exam, plus streak and topic-mastery badges -- real signal in a field of over a million appeared candidates.
6. It installs like a real app and reminds you before consistency slips. Add Coach to your home screen directly from the browser, no app store needed, with offline access to anything you've already opened, and a daily notification for that day's quiz.
Subscribe to Camino Prep Coach for SSC CHSL -- closing a 10-point retention gap matters more at 369-to-1 odds than almost anywhere else your study time could go.