Exam coverage
What are the common questions in the Civil Service Exam?
Nobody can honestly give you a list of the questions on the examination, and you should be careful with anyone who says they can.
Examination content is confidential. A page offering “the questions that came out last year” is either publishing material it should not have, or it made the list up. Both are bad ways to spend your preparation: the questions change between sittings, so even a genuinely leaked set trains you for a paper you will not sit.
The questions are not common. The formats are, and there are only about a dozen of them. Recognising which format is in front of you, and knowing the method for it, is most of what separates people who finish the paper from people who do not.
The formats that repeat
This is the useful version of your question. Every one of these appears on the paper in some number, and every one has a method that works regardless of the specific words in the item.
| Subject | What repeats |
|---|---|
| Numerical | Number series, percentage and ratio, word problems, fractions and decimals, basic geometry |
| Verbal (English) | Vocabulary in a sentence, grammar and error recognition, paragraph organisation, reading comprehension |
| Verbal (Filipino) | Kasingkahulugan at kasalungat, wastong gamit, ng at nang, pagkilala sa mali, pagsunod-sunod ng pangungusap |
| Analytical (Professional) | Word analogy, logical reasoning, assumptions and conclusions, data interpretation |
| Clerical (Subprofessional) | Filing and alphabetising, spelling, attention to detail and comparison |
| General Information | The 1987 Constitution, R.A. 6713 and R.A. 3019, peace and human rights, environment management |
Why format beats a question list
A memorised question helps you exactly once, and only if that question reappears. A method for number series helps you on every number series you will ever see, including the ones nobody has written yet.
This is not a consolation prize for not having the leaked set. It is genuinely the better preparation, and it is why the worked posts on this site are built around naming the format and its method rather than listing examples with answers underneath. Take number series — four rules cover almost every one on the paper, and taking the differences first finds the rule in seconds. Or word analogy, where the answer is decided before you read the options at all.
What the General Information section actually asks
This is the section people mean when they ask what “comes out”, and it is the one where a list feels most possible. It is still the wrong shape.
The scope is published: the Constitution, the Code of Conduct for public officials, peace and human rights, and environment management. What is asked from within it is not a fixed set of facts but a set of situations — which provision a described case runs into, which office is responsible, what a public official must do when handed a gift. There are far more situations than there are provisions, which is exactly why memorising a list of facts underperforms understanding a smaller number of rules.
How to find out which formats cost you marks
Not all dozen matter equally to you. The free 50-question diagnostic is balanced across every one of them and reports per skill, so it tells you in under an hour which three or four are actually costing you marks. Then work those, in practice sets by topic, where every wrong option explains which mistake it represents.
Every question on this site is written for it against the published scope and format. Nothing is copied from another reviewer and nothing comes from recalled examination material — our editorial standards set out how they are written and checked.