HP Placement Papers: 2026 Test Pattern and Sample Questions

HP’s campus placement test spans three graded sections (Quantitative Aptitude, Verbal Ability, and Technical), and clearing the written round is the gate to the interview stages.

Both HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise run campus recruitment programmes across India, with drives at colleges in Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Noida. The test sits at moderate to hard difficulty, which means every section needs preparation, not just a last-minute scan of sample questions.

This guide covers the pattern, the syllabus by section, and worked sample questions you can use as preparation benchmarks before your HP drive.

HP Placement Test Pattern

The table below reflects the structure seen across recent HP campus drives. Because both HP Inc. and HPE recruit independently, the exact section sizes can shift by year and batch. Your college placement coordinator will have the confirmed specification for your drive; the core three-section structure has stayed consistent.

Section	Key Topics	Questions (approx.)	Time (approx.)
Quantitative Aptitude	Percentages, Averages, Time and Work, Speed and Distance, Profit and Loss, Permutations, Probability	20 to 25	25 to 30 min
Verbal Ability	Reading Comprehension, Grammar, Synonyms and Antonyms, Sentence Reordering, Fill in the Blanks	20 to 25	20 to 25 min
Technical	C and C++, Data Structures, Algorithms, OOP Concepts, OS Basics, Computer Architecture	20 to 25	25 to 30 min
Total		60 to 75	70 to 85 min

Negative marking policies vary by drive. Confirm with your placement coordinator before the test. HP publishes active campus openings at HP Enterprise Careers.

Quantitative Aptitude Section

The Quantitative section covers algebra, arithmetic, time and work, time-speed-distance, percentages, profit and loss, averages, permutation and combination, probability, HCF and LCM, and basic geometry. Difficulty is moderate. Questions are calculation-heavy and reward students who can estimate or eliminate wrong options quickly.

Two things to note about prep: fractions and percentages appear in almost every variant of this paper. And the probability questions tend to be straightforward (basic counting and combination setups), not the tricky conditional-probability type you see in GATE or CAT.

Sample Questions: Quantitative Aptitude

• Q1. A shopkeeper marks an article 25% above cost price, then offers a 10% discount on the marked price. What is the profit percentage?

  • Let cost price = 100
  • Marked price = 125
  • Selling price after 10% discount: 125 x 0.90 = 112.50
  • Profit = 12.50 on cost of 100
  • Answer: 12.5%

• Q2. Rachel scored an average of 90 marks in 3 of her 7 subjects. What average does she need in the remaining 4 subjects to achieve an overall average of 80 across all 7?

  • Total marks in 3 subjects = 90 x 3 = 270
  • Total marks needed for a 7-subject average of 80 = 80 x 7 = 560
  • Marks required in the remaining 4 subjects = 560 - 270 = 290
  • Required average = 290 / 4 = 72.5
  • Answer: 72.5

Both questions sit at the moderate range typical of HP drives. Q1 tests the standard markup-discount profit setup; Q2 is a weighted-average problem. Neither requires advanced mathematics, but both demand careful arithmetic with no calculator.

Verbal Ability Section

The Verbal section tests reading comprehension, English grammar, and vocabulary. Expect short RC passages of 200 to 300 words, fill-in-the-blank grammar questions, sentence reordering, and direct vocabulary questions covering synonyms and antonyms.

Grammar questions lean towards indirect speech conversion, active-to-passive voice, subject-verb agreement, and correct preposition usage. Students from non-English-medium colleges should spend extra time here: the RC passages use formal register, and the vocabulary items go beyond basic high-school lists.

Sample Questions: Verbal Ability

• Q3. Choose the word that best fits the blank: ”_______ is an essential quality required to be a good lecturer.”

  • (A) Fortitude: strength of mind to endure adversity with steadiness
  • (B) Hedonism: pursuit of pleasure as the highest good
  • (C) Idiosyncrasy: a personal peculiarity or unusual habit
  • (D) Pedigree: distinguished ancestry or lineage
  • Answer: (A) Fortitude. A lecturer needs mental resilience and composure to handle classroom demands. Hedonism, idiosyncrasy, and pedigree are unrelated to the professional qualities the question targets.

• Q4. Rewrite in indirect speech: She said to me, “Don’t work very hard.”

  • (A) She told me to not work very hard.
  • (B) She asked me not to work very hard.
  • (C) She begged me not to work very hard.
  • (D) She asked me not to work hard.
  • Answer: (B). Negative imperatives in indirect speech use “asked not to” for a neutral register. Option (C) implies an emotional tone not present in the original. Option (D) changes the meaning by dropping “very.”

Technical Section

The Technical section is typically the hardest for students from non-CS branches (ECE, EEE, Mechanical). It covers C and C++ programming concepts, data structures, object-oriented programming, operating system basics, and computer architecture.

For C and C++ questions, focus on: pointers and pointer arithmetic, array indexing, constructor types in OOP, scope rules, and output-tracing questions on loops and conditionals. Output-tracing questions, where you read a short code snippet and determine what gets printed, are a consistent pattern across HP drives.

Sample Questions: Technical

• Q5. Which of the following is NOT a type of constructor in C++?
  • (A) Copy constructor
  • (B) Friend constructor
  • (C) Default constructor
  • (D) Parameterized constructor
  • Answer: (B) Friend constructor. C++ defines three standard constructor types: default, copy, and parameterized. “Friend” is an access specifier that controls member visibility; it is not a constructor type and cannot be used to construct objects.

For output-tracing questions, HP’s Technical section frequently provides a short C program and asks what gets printed. Here is a representative example. The code below uses a loop to track an index variable through an array:

#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    int iVar = 0, iCnt;
    int aiArr[] = {56, 23, 4, 89, -200, 34};
    for (iCnt = 1; iCnt < 6; iCnt++) {
        if (aiArr[iCnt] < aiArr[iVar])
            iVar = iCnt;
    }
    printf("%d", iVar);
    return 0;
}

Options: (A) 4, (B) 89, (C) 3, (D) -200.

Per cppreference, the int main(int argc, char **argv) signature is standard C. Tracing through the loop:

• iCnt = 1: aiArr[1] = 23, aiArr[0] = 56. Is 23 < 56? Yes, so iVar = 1
• iCnt = 2: aiArr[2] = 4, aiArr[1] = 23. Is 4 < 23? Yes, so iVar = 2
• iCnt = 3: aiArr[3] = 89, aiArr[2] = 4. Is 89 < 4? No
• iCnt = 4: aiArr[4] = -200, aiArr[2] = 4. Is -200 < 4? Yes, so iVar = 4
• iCnt = 5: aiArr[5] = 34, aiArr[4] = -200. Is 34 < -200? No
• Loop ends. printf outputs iVar = 4.
• Answer: (A) 4. The code finds the index of the minimum element, not the minimum value. The minimum value -200 sits at index 4, so printf outputs 4. This index-versus-value distinction is a standard output-tracing trap.

Preparing for HP Placement

Four to six weeks is enough time to cover all three sections systematically. A suggested split:

• Weeks 1 to 2: Quantitative fundamentals. Work through percentages, averages, and time-work-distance first, since these appear in nearly every HP paper variant. Solve 20 problems per topic before moving to timed sets.
• Weeks 3 to 4: Verbal ability. Read one RC passage per day and work through 10 grammar questions daily. Build vocabulary from reading context, not rote memorisation lists. Focus on indirect speech and active-to-passive conversion specifically.
• Weeks 5 to 6: Technical section. Solve at least 50 C output-tracing questions before the drive. Review constructor types, pointer basics, and array indexing. If you are from ECE or EEE, spend the first two days of this window on C syntax alone.

Practising previous papers matters more than memorising individual answers. The pattern repeats across batches; the numbers change. If you are also preparing for other tech-company drives, the Technical section structure in HP overlaps significantly with what appears in the Texas Instruments placement test, and the Quantitative section maps closely to the pattern covered in the EY aptitude test guide.

One practical note on timing: aim for no more than 80 seconds per question on average. If a Quantitative question runs long, mark it and return after finishing the rest of the section. Time management in the HP test is as important as content knowledge.

The C output-tracing and algorithm logic covered in the Technical section above are the same fundamentals that apply in AI application development. If you want to see how those skills extend into building real AI tools, TinkerLLM is a ₹299 entry point to explore before committing to a longer programme.