Introduction

When someone says that I want to join the Armed Forces as an officer, the first thing that surely will come to anyone’s mind is NDA. It is a widely known exam in our country that comprises many assumptions in people’s minds. Today, we will be discussing more about the NDA exam and would be going to know it in a little deep.

NDA stands for the National Defence Academy, and it is a very renowned exam in our country. On average, approximately 3-4 lakh students appear for the NDA written exam, out of which only 418 (208 for Army, 42 for Navy and 120 for Air Force and 50 for Naval Academy) students can get entry into the National Defence Academy, khadakwasla. If we open the whole book of the NDA Exam, it will be a great book. So let’s start reading different chapters related to it.

Form filling

This is a national level exam conducted twice a year. Generally, the form filling happens approximately in February and August from the UPSC official website as UPSC itself conducts the paper. Though also, the Form filling is painless and does not require very complicated procedures. Though approximately UPSC receives 7-8 Lakh applications every year, a very less number of students can qualify the written examination. The students having age between 16.5 -19.5 Years are only applicable for filling the form. The basic education qualification fixed for this entry is that the candidate needs to be 12th Passed or pursuing the same. If we look into the whole country, then there are approximately 41 places allotted for the NDA exam.

Written Exam

After the filling of the form is finished, then the written paper is conducted for the NDA. Talking about the written paper, it is conducted in two phases, or we can say two parts. The first paper is of Mathematics, and the second one is about General Ability. The NDA exam is conducted in the pen and paper form and has multiple-choice questions. Although the time duration for both the paper is the same, they also have negative marking in them for the wrong answers.

I am firstly talking about the mathematics exam. The Mathematics paper’s total duration is 2 hours and 30 minutes, which comprises a total of 120 questions. Each question is of 2.5 marks, making the total weightage of the paper 300 marks. Talking about the syllabus, the paper mostly covers the topic from 11th and 12th class Mathematics. Some questions in the paper are easy, moderate while some are hard. So, overall it is a mixture of all types of questions. It is a bit important to score good marks in this paper as compared to the GAT paper for the candidates.

After that, if we will talk about the Ability Test paper. The GAT paper’s total duration is 2 hours and 30 minutes, which comprises a total of 150 questions. Each question is of 4 marks, making the total weightage of the paper 600 marks. Here, the paper is again subdivided into a certain part with English and general ability. There are 50 questions from English, and the rest 100 questions comprise the mixture of physics, chemistry, biology, and social studies with some part of current affairs. Normally for the preparation of this paper, candidates need to mug up things. This paper is also a good source for gaining good marks and creating a much higher score for other people.

Service Selection Board(SSB) interview

After the result of the Written exam is declared, within some weeks, the dates of SSB of candidates are announced. The SSB dates do come online, but they also send a post where all the SSB Interview instructions will also be mentioned. SSB is a 5–6 days evaluation process.

Services Selection Board (SSB) is an organization responsible for assessing the candidates for becoming officers in the Indian Armed Forces. The board evaluates the candidate’s suitability for becoming an officer using some standardized evaluation system protocols that constitute personality, intelligence tests, and interviews. The tests are of both types, i.e., written and practical task-based. An SSB comprises the panel of assessors, officers in the Indian Armed Forces, and their specialization as Psychologist, GTO (Group Task Officer), and Interviewing Officer. There are thirteen Service Selection Boards across India, out of which four boards are for the Indian Army, four boards are for Indian Air Force, and five boards for the Indian Navy.

The SSB procedure is divided into two stages, where Stage-1 is conducted on the 1st day of reporting, and the candidates who have cleared it are allowed to stay for the next for next Stage-2 of SSB. The accommodations and the foods are being arranged by the boards themselves during the procedure. In stage-2, it is further sub-divided into three main test psychology, GTO, and the personal interview test. On the last day before the result is declared, a short conference is also conducted to assess candidates for the last and very short time. After the conference, the results are declared.

Though the main qualities which the officers keep on finding or judging in the candidates roam around the Officer Like Qualities, which are defined as:

• Effective Intelligence
• Reasoning Ability
• Organizing ability
• Power of Expression
• Social Adaptability
• Co-operation
• Sense of Responsibility
• Initiative
• Self Confidence
• Quickness of Decision
• Ability to influence
• Liveliness
• Determination
• Courage
• Stamina

Medicals and Merit List

After the candidates get recommend, they are further processed for a medical examination. For most of the times, medical examinations are done on the same places where candidates get recommend but sometimes for boards like Varanasi, Candidates need to choose their place for medical examination.

Again it is a little time taking process which may take up to 5-10 days based upon the availability of doctors in the Military Hospitals. In the medical examination, the basic duty of the doctors is not just to focus on the present time diseases in the body but lies to check the body fo the future consequences. They do a thorough check-up of the whole body from small ears to big X-Rays. The NDA has also provided a whole curriculum where they have provided with the rules and regulations related to medical examinations.

After the Medicals, the result is announced. It is very good news for the one who gets medically fit in the first attempt otherwise candidates who get medically unfit gets another chance to appeal for second check-up within the limit of 42 days. The chance of appeal is given with the thought of considering the human or machine error.

After the whole medical process is completed, the last and the final step is the declaration of the merit list. Approximately after one month of the declaration of the medical result, merit list is launched. Firstly a pre merit list is launched with the names of candidates who got recommended with their ranks, after that, a final merit list is launched which only have the names of the candidates who will be getting into the academy.

Conclusion

Finally, the candidates are called at the National Defence Academy, where they will be doing future training for three years. After their training at the NDA, candidates are sent to their respective cores or branches for one more year of training. Generally, we can see that it takes approximately one year since the time of filling the form to the time of going into the academy for training. So, being a very long process, surely it gives very good experiences. Though if someone could not make it either in the lasts stages, they should not become sad. Instead, they need to stand once again by being more strong and learn from the failures.

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