NTSE: An organization to nurture India’s talent of tomorrow

The National Talent Search Examination (NTSE) is a national level scholarship program in India to identify and nurture talented students. The NTSE is open for students of Indian nationality whether they study in India or abroad at class VIII level. As it is organized by an official body NCERT, it is widely regarded as the toughest and most prestigious examination up to high school level in the country.
For the courses in Basic Sciences, Social Sciences and Commerce, this scholarship is provided up to Ph.D. level. For professional courses like Engineering, Medicine, Management and Law this scholarship is given only up to Post Graduation.

The NTSE consists of two stages
Stage-1 (STSE)
Each state/UT conducts its own examination. This examination is primarily used to recommend a fixed number of candidates for the second level test to be conducted by the NCERT. The state level screening examination in all states/UTs is on the second Sunday of November except in Nagaland, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Meghalaya and Mizoram where it will be conducted on second Saturday of November every year.
All students of class VIII in any type of recognized school including Kendriya Vidyalaya, Navodaya Vidyalaya, and Sainik School etc are eligible. There is no domicile restriction.

Stage I comprises of two parts
(a) Mental Ability Test (MAT): This test is given to the candidates to judge their power of reasoning, ability to think, ability to judge. A variety of questions e.g. analogies, classification, series etc. are used for this purpose.
(b) Scholastic ability Test (SAT) covering mathematics, Science and Social Sciences.

Both MAT (90 MCQ’s) & SAT (90 MCQ’s) are to be of 90 min each with a break in between. Thus on an average examinee will get 1 minute to answer a question. Every correct answer carries one mark and there is no negative marking.

Stage-2 (NTSE)
Candidates acquiring more than the required percentage in the STSE (stage-I) and standing within a specified number of top ranks (state quota) are eligible to appear for NTSE stage-II (about top 3000 students from the entire country). NCERT conducts this second stage every year on 2nd Sunday of May.

Students studying abroad: can appear directly for Stage II NTSE under conditions prescribed in the brochure for class VIII which is available on the NCERT website.
This paper comprises of two parts
(a): Mental Ability Test (MAT).
(b): Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) (History, Civics, Geography, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology in addition to Economics (In stage-II only))

Both MAT (100 MCQ’s) & SAT (100 MCQ’s) are to be of 90 min each with a break in between. Thus on an average examinee will get around 54 seconds to answer a question and there will be no negative marking. The expected cut off for general & SC/ST category is 40/100 and 32/100 respectively.

However, there will be no interview in NTSE 2011 (as it was earlier till 2010).


Sumit Khazuria is the resource executive of scholarships and NTSE wing of Pioneer Mathematics.
For the last 8 years, he has updated and guided students on the patterns {MAT & SAT} and details of exam schedules and syllabi for NTSE, most of them completing these scholarships successfully. In addition, the author is assisting students in mastering the best suitable career and competition.