NDA Exam Pattern: Section Wise Paper Pattern

NDA is an important examination for the students who are interested in joining the Indian Defence Forces. This exam works as a getaway for students wanting to join the Indian Air Force, Indian Army or Indian Navy. It is a national level examination conducted by UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) twice a year.

This article will cover in detail almost everything a student must go through before writing the exam; preparation tips for the NDA examination, the pattern of the NDA exam, the syllabus, the marking scheme and the types of questions asked in the examination.

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NDA 2021 Exam Pattern

NDA examination is held twice a year through a written test (offline mode). The registration process began on 9th June 2021, and the second NDA examination will be held on 14th November 2021. The NDA examination consists of two sections: Mathematics and General Ability Test, and the total time to complete both sections is five hours.

• The examination is conducted through offline mode (written test).
• The questions in the exam are all multiple-choice questions, that is, objective.
• There are two sections: Mathematics, this section contains 120 questions of 300 marks, and the section of General Ability Test contains 150 questions of 600 marks.
• The General Ability Test has two sections of English (200 marks) and General Knowledge (400 marks).
• The syllabus is the standard of CBSE 10 2.
• There are negative markings based on the marks allotted to each question in the exam.
• The examination is held in both English and Hindi languages.

The table below explains the score distribution of NDA examination 2021:

Subject	Paper	Total Number of Questions	Duration of Exam	Maximum Marks
Mathematics	1	120	2.5 Hours	300
General Ability Test	2	150	2.5 Hours	600
Total	–	270	900	–

The table below explains the score distribution of the General Ability Test:

Sections		Maximum Marks
Part A – English		200
Part B – General Knowledge	Physics	100
	Chimestry	60
	General Science	40
	History	80
	Geography	80
	Current Events	40
	Total	600

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NDA Interview

When the students qualify for their NDA examination, they have to appear before the NDA interview. Qualifying for the examination is only the first step in joining the Indian Defence Forces; candidates must prepare well for the interviews and the examination. The dates for the SSB interviews have not been announced yet. The SSB interview is conducted in two stages.

• Stage 1 SSB Interview:
  The candidates who qualify for the entrance exam sit through this interview. Two tests are conducted in this stage – Officers Intelligence Rating-test (OIR), Picture Perception (PP) and Description Test (DT). The candidates who qualify at this stage have to appear for the stage 2 SSB Interview.
• Stage 2 SSB Interview: This process takes around four days to complete. The qualified candidates are required to go through many conferences, group testing officer tasks and Psychology tests.

The overview and score distribution:

Stages	Tests
Stage-1	Sceening Test	Verbal and non-verbal tests. PP and DT
Stage-2	Psycological Test	Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) Word Association Test (WAT) Situation Reaction Test (SRT) Self Description Test (SD)
	Group Testing Officers Test	GD GPE PGT HGT IOT Command Task Snake race/Group Obstacle Race Individual lecture FGT

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NDA Syllabus 2021 and Marking Scheme

To prepare for the General Ability Test (GAT), the candidate must read the newspaper daily and keep up with current affairs. The questions in the GAT section will cover not only General Knowledge (GK) and current affairs but also Chemistry, Physics, English, Geography and General Science.

For the section of Mathematics, the candidates must expect the level of questions from CBSE 10 2.

The table below summarises the topics which can be asked in the entrance exam and the allotment of scores:

Sections	Related Topics	Number of Questions
Mathematics	Trigonometry, Statistics, Probability, Integral Calculus & Differential equations, Differential Calculus, Algebra, Logarithms, their applications, Vector Algebra, etc.	120
English	Grammar, Vocabulary, Comprehension	50
General Knowledge	General Science, History, Geography, Physics, Chemistry, Current Events.	100

The table below summarises the marking scheme of the NDA Exam 2021:

Particular	Mathematics	GAT
Total Questions	120	150
Total Marks	300	600
Marks alloted to each Question	2.5	4
Negative marking for each incorrect response	– 0.83	– 1.33

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NDA Preparation 2021

This section will cover some basic and necessary tips to ace the NDA Examination:

• Planning – It is necessary to go through the syllabus so the entire study plan can be crafted. Management of time and NDA syllabus is the key to smartly mastering every topic in the syllabus with the efficient practice of the questions.
• Clarity on basics – Having a solid foundation on the basic topics will help the candidates face difficult questions, so brush your basics as you go up.
• Previous years question papers – Solving previous years question papers will help analyse a pattern in NDA examinations. Solving these papers is one of the best ways to practice the questions asked in different subjects. This practice offers you range and tests your preparation. So, don’t forget to solve previous years question papers.
• Study Material – Using suitable study material to prepare the NDA examination is highly advised by professionals. There are plenty of books, but not all are worth the attempt. So, the advice is to carefully select the right books for the preparations.
• Lastly, along with solving the previous years’ question papers, you should plan to solve model test papers and attempt the mock tests for the NDA examination.

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Conclusion

With the right guidance and preparations, it is easy to crack the NDA entrance examination. Qualifying the entrance examination for NDA helps candidates build up confidence for appearing in the interviews, which last for five days at least.

Candidates’ mental and physical strength is tested in the interviews as there are many physical tests like Snake Race, Obstacle Race, Group tasks, Military Planning Exercise, etc.

Students planning to join India Defence Forces must begin their preparations way earlier to have enough time to go through each topic and ace the examinations and interviews.