SilverZone Foundation · Social Science · Class 6
International Social Studies Olympiad (iSSO) 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 SilverZone Foundation's own site on 19 August 2026. Exam dates re-checked on 14 October 2026.
2026–27 exam dates
Date 1
29 September 2026
Date 2
28 October 2026
Date 3
1 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. Worth noticing on this paper in particular: SilverZone scheduled its first date, 29 September 2026, earlier than any other SilverZone paper our subjects touch: 22 days before SilverZone's first English sitting (21 October 2026) and 9 days before its first maths sitting (8 October 2026).
SilverZone also lists an online-mode sitting of iSSO on 28 November 2026, under the same 31 October 2026 registration cutoff (moved from 30 September 2026). It was added to SilverZone's own exam-date data on 11 September 2026; the dates above are its offline sittings.
Registration: SilverZone publishes one registration cutoff covering every paper it runs, iSSO included: 31 October 2026, on the same schedule it heads "Tentative Examination Schedule." It was 30 September 2026 until SilverZone moved it: on 1 October 2026 the body's own exam-date endpoint still returned 30 September 2026 on all 34 of its records, and when we re-read it on 14 October 2026 every one returned 31 October 2026, with no notice of the change on the site. On this paper the cutoff falls after two of the three offline sittings: iSSO's first was 29 September 2026 and its second is 28 October, three days before the cutoff; the last is 1 December 2026. That is the second time this season SilverZone has replaced its cutoff only after the earlier date had gone by: the endpoint returned 31 August 2026 on every read from 18 August to 1 September 2026, and 30 September 2026 from 2 September. So treat 31 October as SilverZone's current date rather than a settled one, in either direction. If your school has not registered, ask your coordinator to confirm with SilverZone, at info@silverzone.org, which sitting of iSSO an entry made now would be for. Registration is through participating schools by default, so the cutoff binds the school rather than the family. "Social Studies (iSSO)" is a subject checkbox on SilverZone's school registration form. SilverZone also runs an individual registration form at r.silverzone.org; which papers it offers, and what closing date applies to it, we have not been able to confirm.
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
SOF IEO (English) — if your school picks 17 November 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 18 October 2026
SOF ISO (Science) — if your school picks 19 November 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 20 October 2026
Indian Talent Olympiad (ITO) — School route — Set B (extended from 10 October)
Registration closes 22 October 2026
SOF IHO (Hindi) — if your school picks 23 November 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 24 October 2026
SOF IMO (Maths) — if your school picks 26 November 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 27 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 14 October 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 iSSO paper is structured
| Section | Questions | Marks per question | Section total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Theme A — India and the World: Land and the People | 6 | 2.5 | 15 |
| Theme B — Tapestry of the Past | 6 | 2.5 | 15 |
| Theme C — Our Cultural Heritage and Knowledge Traditions | 6 | 2.5 | 15 |
| Theme D — Governance and Democracy | 6 | 2.5 | 15 |
| Theme E — Economic Life Around Us | 6 | 2.5 | 15 |
| Scholar's Zone | 5 | 5 | 25 |
| Total | 35 questions | — | 100 marks · 40 minutes |
The section names are not SilverZone's invention — they are the five themes of the 2026-27 NCERT Class 6 social science book, in the book's own order, which is why this paper maps onto school work more cleanly than any other on this site. The five themes carry 15 marks each, so no theme can be skipped and none is worth cramming over another; history, geography, civics and economics are weighted identically at 6 questions apiece. The Scholar's Zone is 5 questions at 5 marks — a quarter of the paper on one seventh of the questions — and SilverZone names no topics for it. At 35 questions in 40 minutes this is about 69 seconds a question, the same clock as SilverZone's English, maths and science papers. Two limits of what the body publishes, stated rather than filled in: iSSO runs for Classes 1 to 10 (its maths, science and English papers go to 12), and its iSSO page carries no level structure at all, where the iOM, iOS and iOEL pages describe a Level 2 and iOEL a Level 3 — so nothing here says iSSO does or does not have one. Ask your coordinator.
SilverZone publishes no current-year/previous-year split for iSSO, so nothing is claimed here. The theme-wise table is the whole of what the body publishes about the paper's content.
Syllabus
Social Science syllabus mapped to NCERT Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Class 6, 2026-27)
Ch 1. Locating Places on the Earth
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme A — India and the World: Land and the People
Ch 2. Oceans and Continents
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme A — India and the World: Land and the People
Ch 3. Landforms and Life
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme A — India and the World: Land and the People
Ch 4. Timeline and Sources of History
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme B — Tapestry of the Past
Ch 5. India, That Is Bharat
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme B — Tapestry of the Past
Ch 6. The Beginnings of Indian Civilisation
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme B — Tapestry of the Past
Ch 7. India's Cultural Roots
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme C — Our Cultural Heritage and Knowledge Traditions
Ch 8. Unity in Diversity, or 'Many in the One'
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme C — Our Cultural Heritage and Knowledge Traditions
Ch 9. Family and Community
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme D — Governance and Democracy
Ch 10. Grassroots Democracy — Part 1: Governance
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme D — Governance and Democracy (SilverZone lists this as "Governance")
Ch 11. Grassroots Democracy — Part 2: Local Government in Rural Areas
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme D — Governance and Democracy (listed as "Local Government in Rural Areas")
Ch 12. Grassroots Democracy — Part 3: Local Government in Urban Areas
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme D — Governance and Democracy (listed as "Local Government in Urban Areas")
Ch 13. The Value of Work
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme E — Economic Life Around Us
Ch 14. Economic Activities Around Us
Olympiad syllabus label: Theme E — Economic Life Around Us
Nineteen exam pages on this site name topics a child's current book no longer contains. This one names none, and that is the finding rather than an absence of one. Every chapter SilverZone publishes for iSSO Class 6 is a chapter of Exploring Society: India and Beyond, in the book's order, under the book's own five themes — fourteen for fourteen. The only naming difference anywhere in the list is that SilverZone splits the book's three-part "Grassroots Democracy" chapter into its three subtitles, which is a cosmetic difference and is shown above. Set that against SilverZone's own Class 8 maths list, where not one entry is a Ganita Prakash chapter title, and against the Class 6 lists CREST, Indian Talent Olympiad and Humming Bird publish, all of which are written against a science book that no longer exists: the difference is not that some bodies are careful and others are not, it is that Class 6 social science was rewritten into a theme structure clean enough for a body to adopt wholesale. The practical consequence for a Class 6 parent is unusually simple — revising the school book is revising for this paper, for 75 of the 100 marks. The other 25 are the Scholar's Zone, and SilverZone names no topics for it, so nobody can tell you what to revise for those. On our own side, the curator taxonomy for Grade 6 social science (sheet Grade6_SST) carries 62 topic rows across those fourteen chapters plus three in its olympiad-scope bucket — scale and distance, map legend and symbols, and direction and orientation, all map skills that sit on top of chapter 1. SilverZone names none of the three, so they are not a gap in this paper; they are extra ground our Class 6 practice covers, and map work is a reasonable guess at the kind of thing a Scholar's Zone asks. A guess is all it is, and it is labelled one.
Try it yourself
Today's social science question
Practice
Practice in the iSSO format
No — OlympAI does not publish a practice paper for this exam. OlympAI’s question bank covers maths, science and English. We hold no social science questions yet, so there is no social science paper to give you — for this body or any other.
Frequently asked questions
Related guides
Other olympiad syllabus guides
SilverZone Foundation · Class 7
iSSO Class 7 — social science syllabus, dates and pattern
SilverZone Foundation · Class 8
iSSO Class 8 — social science syllabus, dates and pattern
Indian Talent Olympiad (ITO) · Class 6
ITO-E Class 6 — english syllabus, dates and pattern
Indian Talent Olympiad (ITO) · Class 6
ITO-M Class 6 — maths syllabus, dates and pattern
Keep reading
Guides that answer the next question
SOF ISSO vs SilverZone iSSO: which social science olympiad
Two papers with almost the same name, built on opposite principles: SilverZone iSSO spreads its marks evenly across the five themes of your child’s book, SOF ISSO puts 45 of its 50 questions in one undifferentiated section and draws 30 per cent of them from last year. Their calendars barely overlap, and a third body takes a family without the school. Here is the side-by-side for Classes 6, 7 and 8, read off each body’s own surface on 29 September 2026.
SOF and SilverZone registration last dates 2026-27, explained for parents
Four school-route registration dates fell between 23 and 30 September 2026: if your school picked those sittings, SOF’s 30-day rule gave 23 September for a 23 October IMO, 27 September for a 27 October IEO and 30 September for a 30 October ISO, and SilverZone published 30 September 2026 for every paper — a date it has since moved to 31 October 2026. None of them is a form a parent fills in. Here is what each date means, what to ask the school, and where to go if the school is not entering your child.
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
3 practice quizzes a day in each subject free, 10 olympiad-pattern questions each, and 5 with your choice of length and difficulty on OlympAI PRO — for Class 6 social 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