Serving in the armed forces is a prestigious career choice. Joining the National Defence Academy in Khadakwasla, Pune, which is considered the cradle of military leadership in India, is the first and foremost choice of lakhs of young men who aspire to
don the uniform. In recent years, the average number of applicants for the NDA exam conducted by the
UPSC has reached nearly 6 lakh, out of which about 6,000 clear the examination and only close to
400 clear the SSB and join the academy.
Evidently, the NDA exam is a tough nut to crack and the high competition only makes the odds of success smaller. Therefore, a well strategized preparation plan is imperative to success. Even more so, since the NDA exam preparation overlaps with the preparation
for the Class 12 board exams. This is where NDA previous year papers can make a big difference. Including NDA exam question papers in your study plan helps you understand the trends followed in setting the paper, the difficulty level of the exam
as well as the weightage given to different topics. These insights are crucial in helping you concentrate your focus and efforts where it really matters.
Exam Pattern
The very first step in the process of preparing for the NDA exam is to understand the exam pattern fully well. This not only helps you understand which parts of the syllabus to focus on but also how to attempt the NDA past year papers. All in all,
an understanding of the exam pattern acts as a strong foundation to base your preparation on.
The NDA entrance exam is an offline test that follows a MCQ pattern conducted in the month of April. The exam is divided into two papers – mathematics and general ability, which comprises a mix of general knowledge and English. The mathematics papers
carries 300 marks and the general ability paper carries 600 marks. You get 2 hours and 30 minutes to finish each paper. In the general ability paper, English carries a weightage of 200 marks and 400 marks are for GK-related questions. There is also
a provision of negative marking, where 0.83 marks are deducted for every wrong answer in the mathematics paper and 1.33 marks in the general ability paper. Except for the English language section, the NDA exam can be attempted in either English or Hindi.
The Right Approach to Solving NDA Previous Year Papers
The NDA previous year papers are just as important a preparation resource as the best
NDA
books. To make the most of beneficial preparatory tool, you must include
NDA exam
question papers in your study plan early on and use them the right way:
- Start by reading all the instructions at the beginning of the paper and analysing the paper to understand the nature of questions.
- Use the NDA past year papers as mock tests, solving as many as you can to get a real feel of what the actual exam is like.
- Time your NDA exam question papers attempts and make sure you finish each paper within the given limit of 2 hours and 30 minutes.
- Evaluate your performance in each exam honestly using the published solutions for
NDA previous year papers, identify your mistakes and work on correcting these in the subsequent study sessions.
- Sit down with NDA exam question papers of the past 10 years and identify the topics and questions that get repeated most often. Mark these topics in your NDA books. This will help narrow down your focus to topics and concepts that carry the most weightage
in the exam.
Benefits of Solving NDA previous year papers
Solving NDA previous year papers gives your exam preparation an undeniable edge over your competitors. Here’s how:
- Attempting NDA exam question papers over and over again helps you build a strategy for tackling the actual exam.
- You basically practice with a blueprint of the actual exam, so you know the ropes well and can quickly decide which questions to attempt and which ones to skip.
- It helps improve your accuracy and speed enormously.
- You are aware of the type of questions expected in the paper as well as the difficulty level of the exam, and prepared to handle it.
- Since you’ve already read the instructions several times over, you can just skimp through these on the day of the exam and use this saved time on solving the questions instead.
At KopyKitab, we pride ourselves on having curated one of most extensive collections of
NDA previous year question papers PDF download options, available to aspirants in both Hindi and English, along with solutions. We also have some of the best-selling NDA books that have been time-tested to deliver promising results. Combined,
these preparation resources are all you need to see your dream of making it to the National Defence Academy come true.
