NDA Exam Dates

NDA Eligibility Criteria

1. Nationality: 
A candidate must be either be a
(i) a citizen of India, or
(ii). a subject of Bhutan, or
(iii). a subject of Nepal, or
(iv). a Tibetan refugee who came ovbet ot India before the 01 January , 1962 with the intention of spermanently settling in India, or
(v). a Person of Indian origin who has migrated from Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka and East African countries of Kenya, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, Malawim Zaire and Ethiopia or Vietnam with the intention of permanently setting in India. Provided that a candidate belonging to categories (ii), (iii), (iv) and (v) above shall be a person in whose favour a certificate of eligibility has been issued by the Government of India. Certificate of eligibility will not, however, be necessary in the case of candidates who are Gorkha subjetcs of Nepal.

2. Age:  Only Unmarried Male Candidates born not earlier than 2nd Jan, 2002  and not later than 1st Jan, 2005 are eligible.

Sex: Only unmarried male candidates are eligible.

3. Educational Qualifications:

(i) For Army wing of National Defence Academy: 12th Class pass of the 10+2 pattern of School Education or equivalent examination conducted by a State Education Board or a University.

(ii) For Air Force and Naval Wings of National Defence Academy and for the 10+2 Cadet Entry Scheme at the Indian Naval Academy: 12th Class pass of the 10+2 pattern of School Education or equivalent with Physics and Mathematics conducted by a State Education Board or a University.

Candidates who are appearing in the 12th Class under 10+2 Pattern of School Education or equivalent examination can also apply for this examination.

4. Physical Standards: Candidates must be physically fit according to physical standards for admission to National Defence Academy and Naval Academy Examination (II), 2024.

NDA Vacancy 2024

NDA 2024 Vacancy is released on 20th December 2023 along with the notification PDF. The appropriate knowledge of the vacancies will assist the candidates in getting detailed knowledge about the exam and strategizing their preparations effectively. Details regarding various Army, Navy, and Airforce vacancies under NDA 2024 and Naval Academy are shared here.

NDA 1 2024 Vacancy count is announced in the notification pdf on 20th December 2024

NDA Application Form

The application form for the online registration of NDA & NA (II) 2019 is available now on the official website of UPSC (https://upsconline.nic.in/). Candidates can follow the under-mentioned steps to fill the online form of NDA Exam 2024:

• The candidates need to complete 2 parts of registration of the NDA & NA Exam.
• In the 1^st part, the candidates need to fill their personal details like their name, father & mother’s name, identity proof, educational qualification, marital status, address etc.
• Candidates also need to mention their branch preference (Army/ Navy/ Air Force).
• Registration ID will be generated after the submission of this part.
• Next, the candidates are required to upload their photograph and signature in the dimensions specified by UPSC and pay the requisite fees for the NDA Exam.

NDA Admit Card

Step 1: Visit the official UPSC website at www.upsc.gov.in and click on the active exam link to download the admit card.

Step 2: In the list of Active examination, you’ll find a link named: National Defence Academy and Naval Academy Examination 2024. Click on that link.

Step 3: You will be redirected to a new page where there will be a link to access the Admit Card.

Step 4: A new page will open, where the issue and end date will be mentioned. On the right side, there will be a link to download the Admit card.

Step 5: Again you will be directed to a new page, where you have to select one option to download the admit card either through Registration ID or through Roll number. Also if you are not able to recollect, you can click on the “Forgot RID” link.

Step 6: Once you have selected one choice, fill the necessary details and click on Submit Button.

Step 7: Your Admit Card will be displayed on the screen. Verify all the details and contact the Commission if there are any discrepancies.

Step 8: If there is no discrepancy, download the Admit card.

Step 9: Take a printout of Admit Card on A4 size paper.

NDA Curriculum

Candidates undergo a full-time under graduation programme under NDA, where they are awarded a Baccalaureate degree (i.e. the degree of either Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts, depending on the stream of study). The duration of the course is 3 years. Students are awarded the degree if Jawaharlal Nehru University upon completion of the course.

NDA Selection Procedure

UPSC conducts  NDA (National Defence Academy)  Exam in Two Stages.
I. Written Examination
II. Interview

I. Written Examination: The exam will constitute 2 subjects, Maths and General Ability Test and each subject is given the time limit 2 ½ Hours, maximum marks for Maths is 300 & General ability is 600. The papers in all the subjects will consist of objective type questions only. The question papers of Mathematics & Part B of General Ability Test will be set bilingually in Hindi as well as English. The Commission have discretion to fix qualifying marks in any or all the subjects at the examination.

II. Interview: Qualified candidates in the written examination will be called for Interview conducted by SSB (Services selection board). For Army, Navy Wings & 10 +2 Entry Scheme candidates need to undergo Intelligence Test & Personality Test, but for Air Force Wing the candidates must attend a Pilot Aptitude Test. The Interview Consists both Intelligence & Personality Test.

Intelligence and Personality Test:
The SSB procedure consists of two stage Selection process-stage I and stage II. Only those candidates who clear the stage I are permitted to appear for stage II. The details are :
a. Stage I comprises of Officer Intelligence Rating (OIR) tests are Picture Perception Description Test (PP&DT). The candidates will be shortlisted based on combination of performance in QIR Test and PP and DT.
b.  Stage II Comprises of Interview, Group Testing Officer Tasks, Psychology Tests and the Conference. These tests are conducted over 4 days.
The personality of a candidate is assessed by three different assessors viz. the Interviewing Officer (IO), Group Testing Officer (GTO)and the Psychologist. There are no separate weightage for each test. The marks are allotted by assessors only after taking into consideration the performance of the candidate holistically in all the test. In addition, marks for Conference are also alloted based on the initial perfomance of the caniddate in the three techniques and decision of the Board. All these have equal weightage.
The various tests of IO, GTO and Psych are designed to bring out the presence/ absence of Officer Like Qualities and their trainability in a candidate. Accordingly candidates are Recommended or Not Recommended at the SSB.

N.B: Air force given pilot aptitude test only once for the candidate’s .The test selected candidates will go to every subsequent Interview.

NDA Exam Pattern

The UPSC NDA exam comprises of 2 stages.
I.  Written Examination
II.  Interview

I. Written Examination: There will be 2 papers in NDA (National defence academy) and National Academy (NA) written exam. The papers in all the subjects will consist of objective type questions only. The question papers of Mathematics & Part B of General Ability Test will be set bilingually in Hindi as well as English. Time duration for each paper is 2 ½ Hours . Subjects & Maximum Marks details mentioned below.

Scheme of Examination:

i. In the question papers, wherever necessary , questions involving the metric system of Weights and Measures only will be set.
ii. The Commission have discretion to fix qualifying marks in any or all the subjects at the examination
iii. The candidates are not permitted to use calculator or mathematical or logarithmic table for answering objective type papers.

II. Interview: Candidates who select in the written examination are called for Interview which is conducted by SSB.

NDA Syllabus

PAPER-I: MATHEMATICS (Maximum Marks- 300)

1. ALGEBRA: Concept of set, operations on sets, Venn diagrams. De Morgan laws. Cartesian product, relation, equivalence relation. Representation of real numbers on a line.   Complex numbers – basic properties, modulus, argument, cube roots of unity. Binary system of numbers. Conversion of a number in decimal system to binary system and vice-versa. Arithmetic, Geometric and Harmonic progressions. Quadratic equations with real coefficients. Solution of linear in equations of two variables by graphs. Permutation and Combination. Binomial theorem and its applications. Logarithms and their Applications.

2. MATRICES AND DETERMINANTS: Types of matrices, operations on matrices.  Determinant of a matrix, basic properties of determinants. Adjoint and inverse of a square matrix, Applications – Solution of a system of linear equations in two or three unknowns by Cramer’s rule and by Matrix Method.

3. TRIGONOMETRY: Angles and their measures in degrees and in radians. Trigonometrical ratios. Trigonometric identities Sum and difference formulae. Multiple and Sub-multiple angles. Inverse trigonometric functions. Applications – Height and distance, properties of triangles.

4. ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY OF TWO AND THREE DIMENSIONS: : Rectangular  Cartesian Coordinate system. Distance formula. Equation of a line in various forms. Angle between two lines. Distance of a point from a line. Equation of a circle in standard and in general form. Standard forms of parabola, ellipse and hyperbola. Eccentricity and axis of a conic. Point in a three dimensional space, distance between two points. Direction Cosines and direction ratios. Equation of a plane and a line in various forms. Angle between two lines and angle between two planes. Equation of a sphere.

5. DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS: Concept of a real valued function – domain, range and graph of a function. Composite functions, one to one, onto and inverse functions. Notion of limit, Standard limits – examples. Continuity of functions – examples, algebraic operations on continuous functions. Derivative of function at a point, geometrical and physical interpretation of a derivative – applications. Derivatives of sum, product and quotient of functions, derivative of a function with respect to another function, derivative of a composite function. Second order derivatives. Increasing and decreasing functions. Application of derivatives in problems of maxima and minima.

6. INTEGRAL CALCULUS AND DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS: Integration as inverse of differentiation, integration by substitution and by parts, standard integrals involving algebraic expressions, trigonometric, exponential and hyperbolic functions. Evaluation of definite integrals – determination of areas of plane regions bounded by curves – applications. Definition of order and degree of a differential equation, formation of a differential equation by examples. General and particular solution of a differential equations, solution of first order and first degree differential equations of various types – examples. Application in problems of growth and decay.

7. VECTOR ALGEBRA: Vectors in two and three dimensions, magnitude and direction of a vector. Unit and null vectors, addition of vectors, scalar multiplication of a vector, scalar product or dot product of two vectors. Vector product or cross product of two vectors. Applications-work done by a force and moment of a force and in geometrical problems.

8. STATISTICS AND PROBABILITY: Statistics: Classification of data, Frequency distribution, And cumulative frequency distribution – examples. Graphical representation – Histogram, Pie Chart, frequency polygon – examples. Measures of Central tendency – Mean, median and mode. Variance and standard deviation – determination and comparison. Correlation and regression. Probability: Random experiment, outcomes and associated sample space, events, mutually exclusive and exhaustive events, impossible and certain events. Union and Intersection of events. Complementary, elementary and composite events. Definition of probability – classical and statistical – examples. Elementary theorems on probability – simple problems. Conditional probability, Bayes’ theorem – simple problems. Random variable as function on a sample space. Binomial distribution, examples of random experiments giving rise to Binominal distribution.

PAPER-II: GENERAL ABILITY TEST (Maximum Marks-600)

Part ‘A’ – ENGLISH (Maximum Marks 200)

The question paper in English will be designed to test the candidate’s understanding of English and workman like use of words. The syllabus covers various aspects like: Grammar and usage, vocabulary, comprehension and cohesion in extended text to test the candidate’s proficiency in English.

Part ‘B’ – GENERAL KNOWLEDGE (Maximum Marks-400)

The question paper on General Knowledge will broadly cover the subjects: Physics, Chemistry, General Science, Social Studies, Geography and Current Events. The syllabus given below is designed to indicate the scope of these subjects included in this paper. The topics mentioned are not to be regarded as exhaustive and questions on topics of similar nature not specifically mentioned in the syllabus may also be asked. Candidate’s answers are expected to show their knowledge and intelligent understanding of the subject.

Section ‘A’ (Physics): Physical Properties and States of Matter, Mass, Weight, Volume, Density and Specific Gravity, Principle of Archimedes, Pressure Barometer. Motion of objects, Velocity and Acceleration, Newton’s Laws of Motion, Force and Momentum, Parallelogram of Forces, Stability and Equilibrium of bodies, Gravitation, elementary ideas of work, Power and Energy. Effects of Heat, Measurement of temperature and heat, change of State and Latent Heat, Modes of transference of Heat. Sound waves and their properties, Simple musical instruments. Rectilinear propagation of Light, Reflection and refraction. Spherical mirrors and Lenses. Human Eye. Natural and Artificial Magnets, Properties of a Magnet, Earth as a Magnet. Static and Current Electricity, conductors and Non-conductors, Ohm’s Law, Simple Electrical Circuits, Heating, Lighting and Magnetic effects of Current, Measurement of Electrical Power, Primary and Secondary Cells, Use of X-Rays. General Principles in the working of the following : Simple Pendulum, Simple Pulleys, Siphon, Levers, Balloon, Pumps, Hydrometer, Pressure Cooker, Thermos Flask, Gramophone, Telegraphs, Telephone, Periscope, Telescope, Microscope, Mariner’s Compass; Lightening Conductors, Safety Fuses.

Section ‘B’ (Chemistry): Physical and Chemical changes. Elements, Mixtures and Compounds, Symbols, Formulae and simple Chemical Equations, Law of Chemical Combination (excluding problems). Properties of Air and Water. Preparation and Properties of Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and Carbon dioxide, Oxidation and Reduction. Acids, bases and salts. Carbon – different forms. Fertilizers – Natural and Artificial Material used in the preparation of substances like soap, Glass, Ink, Paper, Cement, Paints, Safety Matches, and Gun-Powder. Elementary ideas about the Structure of Atom, Atomic, Equivalent and Molecular Weights, Valency.

Section ‘C’ (General Science): Difference between the living and non- living. Basis of Life – Cells, Protoplasm’s and Tissues. Growth and Reproduction in Plants and Animals. Elementary knowledge of Human Body and its important organs. Common Epidemics, their causes and prevention. Food – Source of Energy for man. Constituents of food, Balanced Diet. The Solar System – Meteors and Comets, Eclipses. Achievements of Eminent Scientists.

Section ‘D’ (History, Freedom Movement etc.): A broad survey of Indian History, with emphasis on Culture and Civilizations. Freedom Movement in India. Elementary study of Indian Constitution and Administration. Elementary knowledge of Five Year Plans of India. Panchayati Raj, Co-operatives and Community Development. Bhoodan, Sarvodaya, National Integration and Welfare State, Basic Teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. Forces shaping the modern world; Renaissance, Exploration and Discovery; War of American Independence. French Revolution, Industrial Revolution and Russian Revolution. Impact of Science and Technology on Society. Concept of one World, United Nations, Panchsheel, Democracy. Socialism and Communism. Role of India in the present world.

Section ‘E’ (Geography): The Earth, its shape and size. Latitudes and Longitudes, Concept of time. International Date Line. Movements of Earth and their effects. Origin of Earth. Rocks and their classification; Weathering – Mechanical and Chemical, Earthquakes and volcanoes. Ocean Currents and Tides Atmosphere and its composition; Temperature and Atmospheric Pressure, Planetary Winds, cyclones and Anti-cyclones; Humidity; Condensation and Precipitation; Types of Climate. Major Natural regions of the World. Regional Geography of India – Climate, Natural vegetation. Mineral and Power resources; location and distribution of agricultural and industrial activities. Important Sea ports and main sea, land and air routes of India. Main items of Imports and Exports of India.

Section ‘F’ (Current Events): Knowledge of Important events that have happened in India in the recent years. Current important world events. Prominent personalities – both Indian and International including those connected with cultural activities and sports.

NDA Cut Off

UPSC releases NDA Cut Off every year after completing the recruitment process. The cut-off marks are released separately for the written exam and the final selection. Candidates appearing for the NDA 2024 exam must check out the previous year’s cut-off to determine the number of good attempts. It is affected by many factors, such as the number of vacancies, the difficulty level of the paper, the number of applicants, etc.

NDA STEPS APPLYING

Step 1: Visit the official website of UPSC NDA i.e. upsconline.gov.in

Step 2: Register yourself by Providing all details that have been asked in part-I of the registration form.

Step 3: In Part-II, the candidate has to provide his/her personal, basic and contact details.

Step 4: Upload the pre-scanned copies of the photograph and signature in JPEG and JPG format respectively. The digital size of the photograph must be less than 40 kb and greater than 3 kb and resolution 140-pixel height by 110-pixel width and Bit Depth of image file should be 24 bit.

They must then upload their scanned signature in JPG format. The digital size of each file must be less than 40 kb and greater than 1 kb and resolution 110-pixel height by 140-pixel width and Bit Depth of image file should be 24 bit.

Step 5: At last, make the payment for the successful submission of the application form. Candidates can pay the application fee through online SBI net banking or by cash via SBI Bank challan or through credit card/debit card.

To pay the fee in cash, the candidate should take a printout of the challan generated online after completion of registration.