CREST Olympiads · Science · Class 6
CREST Science Olympiad (CSO) Class 6: syllabus, dates and exam pattern (2026–27)
Everything you need in one place — the exact NCERT chapters this paper tests, its published exam dates, the registration window, and the full marking scheme. Updated for the 2026–27 session.
Last verified against CREST Olympiads's own site on 13 August 2026. Exam dates re-checked on 28 September 2026.
2026–27 exam dates
Level 1 — date 1
3 December 2026
Level 1 — date 2
12 December 2026
Level 2 — date 1
4 February 2027
Level 2 — date 2
6 February 2027
CSO runs online, on different dates from CREST's maths paper — a child sitting both takes CSO first in early December and CMO later the same month. Students pick a slot between 11 am and 7 pm IST on their chosen date. Both levels are listed because CREST's Level 2 gate is wide enough that most candidates reach it. An optional second practice test runs on 3 and 4 November 2026.
Registration: CREST registers students two ways: through a school that has its prospectus, or directly from the family online for students whose school does not participate. The published fee for students registering from India is ₹275, and a child sitting at home needs a webcam. No hard cutoff date is published — CREST advises registering before November rather than naming a deadline. Unified Council (NSTSE) and Indian Talent Olympiad also take entries without the school; most other bodies do not.
The deadline is set by your school, not by you
Most parents find the exam date and assume they have until then. The registration window closes long before it, and for some papers it has already started closing. Here is how it actually works.
- Your school registers your child and your school picks which of the 2–3 dates the class sits. The family does not choose.
- For SOF papers, registrations must reach SOF exactly 30 days before that chosen date — and once the school has chosen, the date cannot be changed.
- Most bodies register through the school. These do not have to: CREST (online, no published cutoff), Unified Council — directly for NSTSE itself at ₹350 against ₹150 through a school, and on three online sittings, NSTSE-Online, UIMO-Online and UIEO-Online, at ₹354 each including GST — Indian Talent Olympiad on its individual online route (its own later dates — Slot 1 closes 30 October), and Humming Bird (online, ₹150 a subject, no published cutoff — its two dates are picked as you register). CREST is the simplest of them. SilverZone also runs an individual registration form alongside its default school route; which papers it offers we have not been able to confirm.
Closing next
SilverZone Foundation — Every SilverZone paper
Registration closes 30 September 2026
The body publishes this date but has not marked it final — confirm with your school before treating it as fixed.
SOF ISO (Science) — if your school picks 30 October 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 30 September 2026
Indian Talent Olympiad (ITO) — School route — Set B
Registration closes 10 October 2026
SOF IEO (English) — if your school picks 17 November 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 18 October 2026
SOF IHO (Hindi) — if your school picks 23 November 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 24 October 2026
Or read the full calendar on the site — no sign-up
Every deadline in this box was re-read against the exam body's own website on or after 28 September 2026. Each table carries its own source link and its own date. Bodies do move dates, so check against the body's own site before you act on one.
Exam pattern
How the CSO paper is structured
| Section | Questions | Marks per question | Section total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section 1 — Practical Science | 40 | 1 | 40 |
| Section 2 — Achievers Section | 10 | 2 | 20 |
| Total | 50 questions | — | 60 marks · 60 minutes |
Every question is multiple choice. The Achievers Section is the same syllabus at two marks a question rather than new topics, so 20 of the 60 marks ride on ten harder questions — and with 50 questions in 60 minutes, roughly a minute and a bit each, the harder third is also where the clock bites.
Syllabus
Science syllabus mapped to NCERT Curiosity (Class 6, 2026-27)
Ch 1. The Wonderful World of Science
Olympiad syllabus label: Not named on CREST's list — new in the 2026-27 book
Ch 2. Diversity in the Living World
Olympiad syllabus label: Living Organisms and Their Surroundings
Ch 3. Mindful Eating: A Path to a Healthy Body
Olympiad syllabus label: Food and its Components
Ch 4. Exploring Magnets
Olympiad syllabus label: Fun with Magnets
Ch 5. Measurement of Length and Motion
Olympiad syllabus label: Motion and Measurement of Distances
Ch 6. Materials Around Us
Olympiad syllabus label: Sorting and Separation of Materials (sorting half)
Ch 7. Temperature and its Measurement
Olympiad syllabus label: Not on CREST's Class 6 list — heat sat in the old Class 7 book
Ch 8. A Journey through States of Water
Olympiad syllabus label: Our Environment (water); overlaps Changes Around Us
Ch 9. Methods of Separation in Everyday Life
Olympiad syllabus label: Sorting and Separation of Materials (separation half)
Ch 10. Living Creatures: Exploring their Characteristics
Olympiad syllabus label: Living Organisms and Their Surroundings
Ch 11. Nature's Treasures
Olympiad syllabus label: Our Environment
Ch 12. Beyond Earth
Olympiad syllabus label: Not on CREST's Class 6 list — new in the 2026-27 book
CREST publishes its Class 6 science syllabus as the pre-2023 NCERT contents page, and for science the mismatch is larger than for maths. Its ten listed topics are Motion and Measurement of Distances, Light Shadows and Reflections, Electricity and Circuits, Fun with Magnets, Our Environment, Sorting and Separation of Materials, Changes Around Us, Living Organisms and Their Surroundings, Food and its Components, and Fibre to Fabric. Four of those ten have no chapter in the 2026-27 Curiosity book: light, shadows and reflections; electricity and simple circuits; changes around us, meaning reversible versus irreversible change; and fibre to fabric. That is 40% of the published topic list a child cannot revise from the book on their desk, and two of the four are physics. It runs the other way too — Curiosity now teaches temperature and the solar system, which are not on CREST's Class 6 list at all. The mapping above is ours rather than CREST's, since the body publishes old chapter names and no map to the new book.
Try it yourself
Today's science question
Practice
Practice in the CSO format
No — OlympAI does not publish a practice paper for this exam. OlympAI has not built this paper’s section structure yet. CREST publishes one; matching our topics onto it is work we have not done, and a paper assembled against the wrong sections would be worse than none.
Frequently asked questions
Related guides
Other olympiad syllabus guides
Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF) · Class 6
ISSO Class 6 — social science syllabus, dates and pattern
Unified Council · Class 6
NSTSE Class 6 — science syllabus, dates and pattern
Unified Council · Class 6
UIMO Class 6 — maths syllabus, dates and pattern
CREST Olympiads · Class 6
CMO Class 6 — maths syllabus, dates and pattern
Keep reading
Guides that answer the next question
Which olympiads can you register for without the school?
Most olympiad bodies register students through the school — but some take a family directly: CREST, Indian Talent Olympiad’s individual online route, Unified Council’s NSTSE and Humming Bird, and SilverZone runs an individual form of its own. Here is exactly how each one works, what it costs, and the deadline that applies to each.
The registration deadline has passed — can my child still sit an olympiad?
A closed olympiad deadline is almost never the season closing. Of the three routes due to close on 31 August 2026, only SOF’s actually did — SilverZone moved its cutoff to 30 September and Indian Talent Olympiad extended Set A twice, to 10 September. Twelve of SOF’s thirteen sittings in Maths, Science, English, Hindi and Social Science were never on that clock at all, and some bodies take a registration straight from a family. Here is what is still open, subject by subject, with the date each route closes on.
Or see every 2026-27 exam date and registration cutoff in one table, or browse all the papers we cover.
Practice these exact chapters, free
Up to 20 olympiad-pattern questions a day free, in each subject, and 200 a day on a paid plan — for Class 6 science, generated from the same NCERT chapters above and written to the shape of the real olympiad papers, then automatically checked before they can be served, the hardest ones re-solved by a second model that has to agree.
Start free