NDA

📌 Overview

The NDA & NA Examination, conducted by UPSC twice a year, is the entry route for unmarried candidates who have passed or are appearing in Class 12 to join the Army, Navy and Air Force wings of the National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, and the Indian Naval Academy, Ezhimala (10+2 Cadet Entry).

Selection has two stages: a written examination (Mathematics + General Ability Test) and the Services Selection Board (SSB) interview, followed by a medical examination. Training at NDA is three years, after which cadets go to their service academies.

UPSC Calendar 2026 listed NDA & NA (I) on 12 April 2026 and NDA & NA (II) on 13 September 2026. Notifications are published on upsc.gov.in and applications on upsconline.gov.in.

📋 Eligibility

• Nationality: Indian citizen or other categories listed in the UPSC notice (Nepal / Bhutan subjects etc.).
• Gender: Male and female candidates are eligible as per current government / UPSC rules for NDA.
• Marital status: Unmarried.
• Age: Roughly 16½–19½ years; the exact birth-date window is printed in every notification. Do not rely on memory.
• Education: Class 12 pass or appearing. Army wing accepts any stream. Navy and Air Force wings require Physics and Mathematics.
• Physical / medical: Height, vision and other standards differ by service and gender. Read the official appendix. SSB and military medicals are strict.

📝 Written Exam Pattern

• Paper 1 Mathematics: 120 questions, 300 marks, 2½ hours. Negative marking 0.83 per wrong answer (one-third of 2.5 marks).
• Paper 2 General Ability Test: 150 questions, 600 marks, 2½ hours. English (200 marks) + General Knowledge (400 marks covering Physics, Chemistry, General Science, History, Geography, Current Events). Negative marking 1.33 per wrong answer (one-third of 4 marks).

Both papers are objective and bilingual (English / Hindi) except the English section. Qualifying the written test only books an SSB call. Final merit uses written + SSB marks among medically fit candidates.

🪖 SSB Interview

Five-day SSB (Screening, Psychology tests, GTO tasks, Personal Interview, Conference) at Selection Centres. Recommended candidates go for a Service medical board. There is no coaching substitute for genuine communication, fitness and officer-like qualities, but practising PPDT, lecturettes and outdoor tasks helps.

📅 2026 Dates (UPSC calendar)

• NDA I 2026: notification Dec 2025 window; exam 12 April 2026
• NDA II 2026: notification May 2026 window; exam 13 September 2026

🔗 Official Resources

• UPSC
• UPSC Online Applications
• Join Indian Army
• Join Indian Navy
• Indian Air Force career portal / AFCAT

💡 Preparation Tips

• Mathematics is Class 11–12 level but speed-based. Finish NCERT plus previous NDA papers.
• GAT GK is wide and school-level. NCERT Science, History and Geography plus six months of current affairs cover most items.
• English: grammar + vocabulary from past papers.
• Start running, push-ups and games early; SSB fitness is not built in a week.
• Women and men must both read the latest physical standards table; they are not identical.

🗂️ How to build your personal syllabus sheet

1. Download the official syllabus / information handout PDF tonight.
2. Copy every heading into a notebook page or spreadsheet.
3. Against each heading write: Book chapter / NCERT unit / YouTube playlist name / last PYQ year you solved.
4. Mark High / Medium / Low after you solve 3 years of PYQs — not before.
5. Revise High topics four times, Medium twice, Low once, all with PYQs.

Current affairs — one method for every exam on this site

• Read (do not only watch): one newspaper or PIB daily digest.
• Make 5–10 lines per important scheme, report, judgment, RBI decision or science mission.
• Revise a 30-day file every Sunday and a 6-month file before Prelims / Mains.
• Link every CA note to a static syllabus heading (polity, economy, environment, banking, defence).

PYQ rule

• If a topic has not appeared in 8–10 years and is tiny in the official syllabus, keep it low priority.
• If a topic appears every year (polity articles, percentage, RC, banking rates, NCERT biology lines), it is High regardless of coaching “new pattern” videos.

📊 Exam Trend & Highest-Weightage Areas

Commissions do not publish an official chapter-wise weightage table. The points below come from public previous-year papers and widely used coaching analyses. Use them to decide revision order, not to skip a listed syllabus topic.

NDA trends

• Maths 300 + GAT 600. GAT English + physics/chemistry/gk/history/geo/current.
• NCERT 11–12 Maths for Army/Navy/Air Force maths paper; GAT science is Class 9–10 heavy.
• SSB + medical remove many written-qualified candidates — run and communicate daily.

📚 What Content You Should Actually Follow

1. Official syllabus PDF of the current year — print it and tick topics.
2. Official previous year papers (last 8–10 years) from the commission / NTA / IBPS / SSC website.
3. One primary book per subject (listed below). Do not collect 10 PDFs of the same chapter.
4. NCERT Class 6–12 where the exam is GS / science / maths based — free on ncert.nic.in.
5. Current affairs only from a newspaper + one monthly compilation + the official PIB / ministry sites.
6. Mocks that copy the live interface (sectional timer, NAT, descriptive box).

📖 Standard Books (widely used by serious aspirants)

• Polity: Indian Polity — M. Laxmikanth; NCERT Class 11 Indian Constitution at Work
• Modern History: Spectrum (Rajiv Ahir); NCERT Themes in Indian History Part III
• Geography: NCERT Class 11–12; Certificate Physical and Human Geography — G.C. Leong (selective)
• Economy: NCERT Class 11–12; Indian Economy — Ramesh Singh or Sanjiv Verma (selective); Economic Survey highlights; Union Budget summary
• Environment: NCERT biology ecology units; Shankar IAS Environment (selective)
• Science (SSC / RRB / GD): Lucent GK science + NCERT 6–10
• Quant / Maths (SSC): SSC previous papers + Rakesh Yadav / Kiran PYQ or equivalent type-wise book; NCERT 8–10 for basics
• Quant (Bank / CAT): Arun Sharma or Sarvesh Verma selectively; daily DI sets
• English grammar: Wren & Martin (selective) + Neetu Singh (KD Campus) Plinth to Paramount / SP Bakshi Objective General English
• Reasoning: R.S. Aggarwal (foundation) + exam-specific PYQ book (Kiran / Adda / Oliveboard)
• Static GK: Lucent General Knowledge; one atlas (Oxford / Orient Blackswan)
• JEE / NEET Physics: H.C. Verma; D.C. Pandey or Physics Galaxy; NCERT exemplar
• JEE / NEET Chemistry: NCERT first; N. Awasthi / M.S. Chauhan / V.K. Jaiswal as level demands
• JEE Maths: Cengage or Arihant series + previous JEE Main / Advanced papers
• NEET Biology: NCERT Class 11–12 line by line; MTG / All-in-one only after NCERT
• CAT VARC: past CAT RCs; a good newspaper editorial habit
• GATE: standard UG textbooks of the branch + made-easy / ACE previous paper books + official GATE papers on the organising IIT site

Buy the latest edition. Second-hand previous-year paper books are enough for practice. Coaching photocopies are optional.

🌐 Official & Open / Free Content (use these first)

• NCERT textbooks (free PDF)
• ePathshala
• NPTEL — free engineering / science lectures by IIT faculty
• DIKSHA
• Press Information Bureau — authentic government news
• Union Budget & Economic Survey
• RBI — monetary policy, bulletin (banking / RBI / NABARD / SEBI)
• UPSC previous papers and cut-offs
• SSC notices and some paper archives
• IBPS information handouts
• NTA — JEE, NEET, CUET, UGC NET, CSIR NET mocks and keys
• SWAYAM — free university courses
• Khan Academy (free world-class maths / science videos mapped to school level)
• Official mock / practice portals of NTA, IBPS (when opened) and JoSAA / MCC counselling brochures

Prefer a government PDF over a random Telegram file. Fake “memory-based papers” with wrong keys waste months.

▶️ YouTube Channels & Teachers (free classes — pick ONE per subject)

These are well-known public education channels. They are not official partners of this website. Watch playlists, not 10 live classes a day. Pause and solve; do not only listen.

School / JEE / NEET foundation

• Physics Wallah (Alakh Pandey) — Physics and complete JEE / NEET boards-to-entrance path; also Defence / SSC verticals under PW
• Khan Academy India — calm concept videos for Maths and Science
• ExamFear / LearnoHub — chapter-wise school Science and Maths
• Physics Galaxy (Ashish Arora) — JEE Physics depth
• Mohit Tyagi — JEE Mathematics (long but thorough playlists)
• Unacademy JEE / NEET and Vedantu JEE — free live plus recorded batches

UPSC / State PSC

• Mrunal Patel — Economy, Budget, Economic Survey (also useful for RBI / NABARD)
• Drishti IAS — Hindi + English current affairs and GS
• StudyIQ IAS — daily CA and subject crash courses
• Vision IAS — current affairs and strategy videos
• ForumIAS / OnlyIAS / Sleepy Classes — optional and GS answer writing samples
• Unacademy UPSC — free editorial and GS sessions

SSC / Railway

• Gagan Pratap Maths — type-wise SSC Maths
• Rankers Gurukul (Aditya Ranjan) — arithmetic for beginners
• English with Rani Ma’am and KD Live (Neetu Singh Ma’am) — SSC English
• Parmar SSC — exam-oriented GA / GS
• Adda247 SSC, Wifistudy, Testbook SSC — live practice

Banking / Insurance / RBI / SEBI / NABARD

• Adda247 Bankers — full IBPS / SBI path, daily CA
• Banking Wallah (Physics Wallah) — puzzles and bank syllabus classes
• Oliveboard and Guidely — mock discussion and mains DI / puzzles
• AffairsCloud / BankersAdda written CA — monthly PDFs (website + YT recap)
• Mrunal again for RBI Grade B ESI / economy

CAT / Management

• Rodha — CAT Quant
• 2IIM CAT — VARC and strategy
• Anastasis Academy / Elites Grid — DILR sets (use free videos + official CAT papers)

GATE / ESE / CSIR

• NPTEL — first choice (IIT faculty, free)
• GATE Academy / Made Easy / ACE YouTube — previous paper discussions
• Unacademy GATE — free plus structured batches

Law / CUET / NET

• LegalEdge / LawSikho free CLAT sets and consortium sample papers
• CUET Adda / PW CUET — domain NCERT walk-throughs
• Let’s Crack UGC NET / Unacademy NTA-UGC — Paper 1 playlists

How to watch: one teacher per subject, 1.25× speed, notebook open, 30-minute video + 30-minute self-practice. Unfollow extra channels.

🗓️ A Simple Content Routine (works for almost every exam on this site)

• Morning (60–90 min): newspaper or PIB + 10 MCQs of yesterday’s CA
• Mid-day (2–3 hrs): one static / core subject from the official syllabus with a standard book
• Evening (90 min): PYQs of that chapter + error log
• Night (45 min): weak-area drill (CSAT / English / formulae)
• Weekly: one full mock in exam conditions + 2-hour analysis
• Monthly: revise the error log, not the whole bookshelf

✅ Open-source & low-cost practice platforms

• Official PYQ PDFs (UPSC, NTA keys, IBPS memory-based after official handout)
• NTA Abhyas / practice tests when the exam window opens
• Free weekly mocks: Oliveboard, Testbook, Adda247, Gradeup/BYJU’S Exam Prep (limited free tier)
• Anki / any free flashcard app for formulae and polity articles
• Google Arts & Culture / Survey of India maps for geography outline practice

⚠️ How to treat coaching names on this page

Book names and YouTube teachers are listed because lakhs of students already use them in public. This site does not sell their courses and does not guarantee a rank if you watch them. Always cross-check facts with the official syllabus and previous papers. If a video contradicts the official notification, trust the notification.

⚠️ Disclaimer

Age windows, vacancies per wing and medical standards change every notification. Download the PDF from upsc.gov.in before applying.