SilverZone Foundation · Science · Class 6
International Olympiad of Science (iOS) Class 6: syllabus, dates and exam pattern (2026–27)
Everything you need in one place — the exact NCERT chapters this paper tests, all 3 exam dates, the registration window, and the full marking scheme. Updated for the 2026–27 session.
Last verified against SilverZone Foundation's own site on 18 August 2026. Exam dates re-checked on 24 August 2026.
2026–27 exam dates
Date 1
14 October 2026
Date 2
19 November 2026
Date 3
8 December 2026
SilverZone publishes these under the heading "Tentative Examination Schedule for the year 2026-27" — they are the body's own dates, but SilverZone has not marked them final, so treat them as indicative until your school confirms. One inconsistency worth knowing about: the schedule lists three dates, while the iOS page itself still describes a two-date structure ("the school may opt from the two dates suggested"). Ask your coordinator which of the published dates your school has actually opted for.
Registration: SilverZone published one registration cutoff covering every paper it runs: 30 September 2026, on the same page it headed "Tentative Examination Schedule." SilverZone moved this date: its own exam-date endpoint returned 31 August 2026 on every read from 18 August to 1 September 2026 and 30 September 2026 from 2 September, with no announcement anywhere on its site. It falls weeks before the exam. Registration is through participating schools only, so the date binds your school rather than you — ask your coordinator now whether the school is entering this paper, or write to info@silverzone.org.
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. Four 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 the four.
Closing next
Indian Talent Olympiad — Set A
Registration closes 5 September 2026 · all five subjects
SOF IMO (Maths)
If your school picks 23 October 2026, registration closes 23 September 2026 · Maths
SOF IEO (English)
If your school picks 27 October 2026, registration closes 27 September 2026 · English
SilverZone — every paper
Registration closes 30 September 2026 · all five subjects
The body publishes this date but has not marked it final — confirm with your school before treating it as fixed.
Or read the full calendar on the site — no sign-up
Every deadline in this box was checked against that exam body's own website on 2 September 2026. Bodies do move dates — we re-check every Monday.
Exam pattern
How the iOS paper is structured
| Section | Questions | Marks per question | Section total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food | 3 | 2.5 | 7.5 |
| Materials | 5 | 2.5 | 12.5 |
| Living World | 6 | 2.5 | 15 |
| Motion and Measurement | 4 | 2.5 | 10 |
| How Things Work | 3 | 2.5 | 7.5 |
| Air | 2 | 2.5 | 5 |
| Reasoning and Aptitude | 7 | 3 | 21 |
| Scholar's Zone | 5 | 4.3 | 21.5 |
| Total | 35 questions | — | 100 marks · 40 minutes |
Two things a parent planning practice time should notice. Reasoning and the Scholar's Zone together are 42.5 of the 100 marks — so a shade under half this paper is not the science chapters at all, and 12 of the 35 questions carry the marks of roughly 17. And at 40 minutes for 35 questions this is about 69 seconds a question, against 72 on SOF's ISO, so it is the tighter clock of the two despite being the shorter paper.
SilverZone does not publish a current-year/previous-year split for iOS the way SOF does for ISO, so nothing is claimed here. The topic table above is the whole of what the body publishes.
Syllabus
Science syllabus mapped to NCERT Curiosity (Class 6, 2026-27)
Ch 2. Diversity in the Living World
Olympiad syllabus label: Living World — Getting to Know Plants
Ch 3. Mindful Eating: A Path to a Healthy Body
Olympiad syllabus label: Food — Components of Food
Ch 4. Exploring Magnets
Olympiad syllabus label: How Things Work — Fun with Magnets
Ch 5. Measurement of Length and Motion
Olympiad syllabus label: Motion and Measurement — Motion and Measurement of Distances
Ch 6. Materials Around Us
Olympiad syllabus label: Materials — Sorting Materials into Groups
Ch 9. Methods of Separation in Everyday Life
Olympiad syllabus label: Materials — Separation of Substances
Ch 10. Living Creatures: Exploring their Characteristics
Olympiad syllabus label: Living World — Body Movements; The Living Organisms, Characteristics and Habitats
Ch 11. Nature's Treasures
Olympiad syllabus label: Air — Air Around Us
SilverZone names eleven topics for Class 6 science. Nine of them map onto a chapter in the 2026-27 Curiosity book, above. Two do not, and both are the same story rather than two problems: Electricity and Circuits, and Light. Neither was dropped — NCERT moved both into Class 7, where they are now Electricity: Circuits and their Components and Light: Shadows and Reflections. So a Class 6 child sitting iOS can be asked two topics their own book will not reach until next year, and no Class 6 teacher is going to cover them in the run-up. That is worth knowing in August rather than in the hall. This page makes no claim about our own coverage of those two, because the curator taxonomy does not back one: Grade 6 science has no olympiad-scope topics in it at all.
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iSSO Class 6 — social science syllabus, dates and pattern
Unified Council · Class 6
UIMO Class 6 — maths syllabus, dates and pattern
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