UP PGT English 2026: Syllabus, Exam Pattern and Preparation Plan
By Nakul Grover, Limitless Literature · Lecturer (PGT) English, subject code 03 · Last checked: 19 October 2026
Quick answer: The UP PGT English (Lecturer) written test, conducted by the Uttar Pradesh Education Service Selection Commission (UPESSC), is on 15 and 16 December 2026. It is an offline OMR test of 120 multiple-choice questions in 2 hours: 30 General Knowledge questions and 90 subject questions. Each correct answer earns 3 marks and each wrong answer loses 1. The English syllabus has two sections: Language (comprehension and grammar) and Literature (literary periods, figures of speech, prosody, stanza forms, seven critics and 20 named authors).
UP PGT English 2026 at a Glance
| Post | Lecturer (PGT), English, subject code 03 |
| Conducted by | Uttar Pradesh Education Service Selection Commission (UPESSC), Prayagraj |
| Advertisement | No. 06/2026, 2,607 PGT posts across all subjects |
| Written test | 15 and 16 December 2026 |
| Mode | Offline, OMR sheet |
| Applications | Closed |
| Admit card | To be announced by UPESSC |
Source: UPESSC advertisement 06/2026 and exam notice. Always confirm on the official website, upessc.up.gov.in.
UP PGT English Exam Pattern and Marking
| Part | Questions | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| General Knowledge | 30 | 90 |
| English (subject) | 90 | 270 |
| Written test total | 120 | 360 |
| Interview | – | 40 |
| Selection total | 400 |
- Marking: +3 for a correct answer, −1 for a wrong or multiple-marked answer, 0 for a question left blank.
- Time: 2 hours for 120 questions, so about one minute per question.
- Weightage: English carries three-quarters of the written marks. That is where your preparation time should go.
UP PGT English Syllabus (Subject Code 03)
This is the official syllabus published by UPESSC, with links to the pages on this site that cover each part.
Section 1: Language
| Topic | What it includes |
|---|---|
| Comprehension | Unseen passage |
| Grammar and usage | Tenses, spellings, punctuation, narration, prepositions, correction of sentences, transformation of sentences, rearrangement of jumbled sentences |
| Vocabulary | Idioms and phrases, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, one-word substitution, prefixes and suffixes |
Section 2: Literature
| Part | Syllabus | Study and practise here |
|---|---|---|
| A. Literary periods | Renaissance and Reformation, Restoration, Neo-classical, Romantic, Victorian, Modern | British literature history questions, Romantic age questions, Victorian poets questions |
| B. Figures of speech | Simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, alliteration, onomatopoeia, oxymoron, pun, synecdoche, metonymy, euphemism, apostrophe, antithesis, transferred epithet | Passages from poems |
| C. Rhetoric and prosody | Metre, rhythm, rhyme and rhetorical devices | Language, linguistics and prosody questions |
| D. Stanza forms | Sonnet, ballad, elegy, ode, epic, mock epic | British poetry questions |
| E. Forms | Types of novel, forms of drama | British literature mind maps |
| F. Critics | Aristotle, Longinus, Dr Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, T. S. Eliot | The 7 critics below |
| G. Authors | 20 named authors, from Chaucer to Toni Morrison | The 20 authors below |
The 20 UP PGT English Authors, with Study Guides
The syllabus asks for each author’s “contributions”: their major works, dates, forms and the ideas they are known for. Every author below has, or will soon have, a full study guide on this site. The same guides serve UGC NET, State SET, GATE and other English exams, so nothing you study here is wasted.
| Author | Period / area | Study guide | Practice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geoffrey Chaucer | Age of Chaucer (14th century) | Chaucer guide | Questions |
| William Shakespeare | Elizabethan and Jacobean drama | Coming soon | Questions |
| William Wordsworth | Romantic poetry and criticism | Wordsworth guide | Questions |
| John Keats | Romantic poetry | Keats guide | Questions |
| P. B. Shelley | Romantic poetry | Coming soon | Questions |
| Charles Lamb | Romantic essay | Coming soon | Questions |
| Charles Dickens | Victorian novel | Dickens guide | Questions |
| George Eliot | Victorian novel | George Eliot guide | Questions |
| Alfred Tennyson | Victorian poetry | Coming soon | Questions |
| Thomas Hardy | Late Victorian novel and poetry | Hardy guide | Questions |
| T. S. Eliot | Modern poetry, drama and criticism | T. S. Eliot guide | Questions |
| Kamala Das | Indian English poetry | Kamala Das guide | Questions |
| Mulk Raj Anand | Indian English novel | Mulk Raj Anand guide | Questions |
| Nissim Ezekiel | Indian English poetry | Nissim Ezekiel guide | Questions |
| Robert Frost | American poetry | Coming soon | Questions |
| Walt Whitman | American poetry | Coming soon | Questions |
| Ernest Hemingway | American novel | Hemingway guide | Questions |
| William Faulkner | American novel | Coming soon | Questions |
| Arthur Miller | American drama | Coming soon | Questions |
| Toni Morrison | American novel | Toni Morrison guide | Questions |
Browse every author we cover, not just the UP PGT list, in our English Literature Authors A–Z.
The 7 Critics on the UP PGT English Syllabus
| Critic | Know this first | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| Aristotle | Poetics: mimesis, the six parts of tragedy, catharsis, hamartia, the unities of action | Plato and Aristotle questions |
| Longinus | On the Sublime: the five sources of the sublime | Horace and Longinus questions |
| Dr Samuel Johnson | Preface to Shakespeare (1765), Lives of the Poets, the term “metaphysical poets” | Pope, Addison and Johnson questions |
| William Wordsworth | Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800): poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” | Wordsworth and Coleridge questions |
| S. T. Coleridge | Biographia Literaria (1817): fancy and imagination, “willing suspension of disbelief” | Coleridge questions |
| Matthew Arnold | “The Study of Poetry”: the touchstone method, high seriousness, poetry as a “criticism of life” | Matthew Arnold guide |
| T. S. Eliot | “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, objective correlative, dissociation of sensibility | Eliot and modern critics questions |
8-Week UP PGT English Preparation Plan
There are about eight weeks between now and 15 December. This plan puts the most marks first and leaves the last two weeks for full tests.
| Weeks | Focus | Daily routine |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Literary periods and the first ten authors (Chaucer to Hardy) | One author guide a day, plus 45 minutes of grammar and vocabulary |
| 3–4 | The remaining ten authors (T. S. Eliot to Toni Morrison) | Same rhythm; revise the works-with-dates tables every third day |
| 5 | The seven critics, figures of speech, prosody and stanza forms | Short topics; test yourself on examples, not definitions |
| 6 | General Knowledge (30 questions) and weak areas | Two topic tests a day; note every wrong answer |
| 7–8 | Full mock tests under exam conditions | One full 2-hour test a day on an OMR-style sheet, then revise the mistakes |
How to Handle Negative Marking in UP PGT
With +3 for a correct answer and −1 for a wrong one, a blind guess between four options gains you nothing on average: one time in four you get +3, three times in four you lose 1, which balances out to zero. But the moment you can rule out even one option with confidence, guessing between the remaining three gains you about a third of a mark per question on average, and ruling out two options gains you a full mark.
- Know it: answer.
- Can eliminate one or two options: answer. The odds are in your favour.
- No idea at all: leave it blank.
This is why practice with explanations matters: every explanation teaches you why the wrong options are wrong, and that is exactly the skill that makes eliminations possible.
Watch: Update for UP PGT English Aspirants
Free UP PGT English Practice Quiz (10 Questions)
Ten questions in the UP PGT style, from both the Language and Literature sections. Answer in your head first, then tap a question to see the answer and the reason.
1. Essays of Elia was written by: (Charles Lamb section)
- William Hazlitt
- Charles Lamb
- Thomas De Quincey
- Leigh Hunt
Answer: B. Charles Lamb. Lamb wrote these personal essays under the pen name “Elia” for The London Magazine from 1820; the collected Essays of Elia appeared in 1823.
2. The treatise On the Sublime is attributed to:
- Horace
- Aristotle
- Longinus
- Plato
Answer: C. Longinus. Peri Hupsous (On the Sublime) names five sources of the sublime, the first two of which (great thoughts and strong emotion) come from nature rather than art.
3. Who first used “metaphysical poets” as a critical label, in his life of Abraham Cowley?
- John Dryden
- Samuel Johnson
- T. S. Eliot
- S. T. Coleridge
Answer: B. Samuel Johnson. Dryden had said Donne “affects the metaphysics”, but Johnson turned it into the name of a school in Lives of the Poets (1779–81). Eliot later defended these poets in “The Metaphysical Poets” (1921).
4. Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” first appeared in which collection?
- North of Boston
- A Boy’s Will
- New Hampshire
- Mountain Interval
Answer: D. Mountain Interval (1916). A Boy’s Will (1913) was his first collection and North of Boston (1914) his second; New Hampshire (1923) won his first Pulitzer Prize.
5. Willy Loman is the central character of:
- Death of a Salesman
- The Crucible
- All My Sons
- A View from the Bridge
Answer: A. Death of a Salesman (1949). All four plays are by Arthur Miller. The Crucible (1953) is set during the Salem witch trials; All My Sons (1947) centres on Joe Keller.
6. “The pen is mightier than the sword” is an example of:
- Metaphor
- Synecdoche
- Metonymy
- Hyperbole
Answer: C. Metonymy. “Pen” stands for writing and “sword” for military force: each is something closely associated with the idea. In synecdoche a part stands for the whole, as in “all hands on deck”.
7. Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H. is an elegy for:
- Edward King
- John Keats
- Arthur Hugh Clough
- Arthur Henry Hallam
Answer: D. Arthur Henry Hallam, Tennyson’s close friend, who died in 1833; the poem was published in 1850. The others are mourned in other elegies: Edward King in Milton’s “Lycidas”, Keats in Shelley’s “Adonais” and Clough in Arnold’s “Thyrsis”.
8. One word for “a person who hates mankind”:
- Misanthrope
- Misogynist
- Philanthropist
- Misogamist
Answer: A. Misanthrope. A misogynist hates women, a misogamist hates marriage, and a philanthropist loves and helps mankind.
9. Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” is built on stanzas in:
- Ottava rima
- Rhyme royal
- Terza rima
- Spenserian stanza
Answer: C. Terza rima. Each of its five sections is four terza rima tercets (aba bcb cdc ded) closed by a couplet (ee), giving a 14-line sonnet-like unit.
10. William Faulkner set most of his novels in the fictional county of:
- Wessex
- Yoknapatawpha
- Malgudi
- Winesburg
Answer: B. Yoknapatawpha, in Mississippi, the setting of The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying. Wessex is Hardy’s, Malgudi is R. K. Narayan’s, and Winesburg, Ohio is Sherwood Anderson’s.
Want 3,000+ more like these, with an explanation for every option? See the mock test series below.
More for English Teaching Exams
UP PGT English 2026: FAQ
When is the UP PGT English exam in 2026?
The UP PGT written test is on 15 and 16 December 2026. UPESSC will announce the shift for each subject with the admit card.
What is the UP PGT English exam pattern?
An offline OMR test of 120 multiple-choice questions in 2 hours: 30 General Knowledge questions and 90 English questions, for 360 marks. Each correct answer earns 3 marks and each wrong answer loses 1. An interview of 40 marks follows, for a selection total of 400.
What is the UP PGT English syllabus?
Two sections. Language: unseen passage, grammar and vocabulary. Literature: literary periods from the Renaissance to the Modern age, figures of speech, rhetoric and prosody, stanza forms, types of novel and drama, seven critics from Aristotle to T. S. Eliot, and 20 named authors from Chaucer to Toni Morrison.
Is there negative marking in UP PGT?
Yes. One mark is deducted for each wrong or multiple-marked answer. Unattempted questions score zero.
Which authors are in the UP PGT English syllabus?
Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, John Keats, P. B. Shelley, Charles Lamb, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, T. S. Eliot, Kamala Das, Mulk Raj Anand, Nissim Ezekiel, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Arthur Miller and Toni Morrison.
