5 Best Ways to Prepare for NDA Exam

Ashish Tiwari
November 2, 2021
11167

NDA Exam is conducted by UPSC twice a year to shortlist candidates for SSB Interview. SSB Interview is conducted by the SSBs of the three forces. Candidates who get recommended and are medically fit are issued joining letters based on their final merit made from aggregate of scores of written exam and SSB.

As I managed to clear the exam in all my 4 attempts I would share some strategies I followed which may help you :

Read the syllabus

First hand go through the syllabus for the exam which is given in the notification released by UPSC. After that take a look at previous year questions from each topic(available on SSBCrackExams) to get a gist of what type of questions are asked from each topic. Analysis of this is necessary as it would help you in making a strategic plan for each chapter. Remember that you don’t have to score 100 percent in the exam so its okay to leave a topic you don’t understand even if its important but make up for that by solving all accurately in topics you know. Make your own study plan .

For Example: Questions of Indefinite Integration involves basic substitutions and formulas given in NCERT so wasting your time solving advanced integration will do you no good for this exam.

Go through the NCERT religiously

Especially for Maths section, go through all the definitions in class XI-XII books as recently many questions are asked from basic domains of functions, definition of terms, etc. For this you can make different lists of formulas on sheets of paper like all formulas of integration and stick it on a wall near your study table and same for Inverse Trigno., Probability, etc.

For GAT section also try completely reading at least the science, history and geography books of IX and X if not earlier classes as many questions are asked directly from the books.

GK Sections Strategy:

I wouldn’t recommend reading daily newspapers for GK section. You can go through the editorial for SSB preparation but for preparation of written follow the trend. If you carefully observe PYQs you will notice that some topics like Military Exercises, Awards, Defence deals/equipment, railway zones, new govt schemes, family planning, etc is asked almost every time . So select topics like these and search for it from net or you can refer to SSBCrackExams study material where all of this is provided in a concise manner.

Tricks/Shortcuts

Maths : As there are way too many tricks or shortcuts available almost for every question I would recommend you to make a notebook and write any shortcut/trick/particular result you notice only after you have implemented it in solving the questions. As simply writing them would do you no good.

Same for GAT like for remembering the parts of Indian Constitution there is TEARS OF OLD PM and many more for other topics too so search for them all available on

Internet and don’t just memorise them note them down.

Mock Tests:

Start your preparation by giving NDA mock test series so you know from start what are your strengths and weaknesses. Keep the mocks regular like on Sundays and keep an exam like environment with time limits. Focus on continuous improvement. Mocks will help you in identifying the type of questions to attempt and the types to take no risk upon. Just know that at start and at times in the last weeks too you scores will be very low but don’t lose hope because the confidence these mocks will give you, would suffice to overcome any nervousness in the exam.

Conclusion:

Make your study plan as per the trends of PYQs and your own strengths. Keep giving mocks to build confidence and identify areas to work on. Self discipline is a big key to clear this hurdle

Jai Hind

How to prepare for the NDA Exam?