NDA Cutoff 2023-24

The NDA cutoff for the year 2022 is not announced yet. It can only be known for sure after the declaration of results for the examination, which can only happen after the tests are completed. However, the cutoffs for the year 2021 can somewhat help in getting a rough idea of what this year’s cutoffs may look like. 

NDA cutoff is the score that you need to get if you want to be eligible for the National Defence Academy training or course. NDA cutoff 2021 was announced by the UPSC after the written exam last year. The final cutoff was announced after the SSB interview. Read this article till the end to know about the NDA cutoff 2022 in detail. 

Types of NDA Cutoff

The National Defence Academy comes out with two types of cutoff marks. One is for the written exam and the other one is for the combination of the written exam and the SSB interview. If a candidate wants the NDA to call him for the SSB interview, he has to secure the cutoff marks or more marks than that. Once the candidate completes the interview session, a final cutoff list will be provided. This cutoff list will take into account both the written exam and the SSB interview. The first cutoff will be against a total of 900 marks. The second cutoff will be against a total of 900+900 = 1800 marks.

Expected Cutoff for NDA 2022

The following table shows the expected NDA cutoff marks for 2022 for the written test as well as the final cutoff based on certain factors from the previous years’ trends in cutoffs. We recommend that you keep these scores in mind while preparing for the exam to at least know what to expect based on a certain algorithm.  

Previous Years’ NDA Cutoffs

The following table shows the NDA cutoffs for the previous years. It may help you get a fair idea of how the trend has been over the span of the last 10 years.

Is Achieving the Cutoff Marks Is All that is Needed? 

If a candidate achieves the NDA cutoff in 2022 but fails to get at least 25% marks in the individual papers, he would be deemed failed. So, in order to successfully get to the interview session, one must also achieve at least 25% of the full marks in each paper of the written exam.

Structure of NDA Exam 

The NDA exam is conducted by the UPSC and not by the army officials. However, in the SSB interview, you will have to face the officials of the Indian Armed Forces. 

The NDA exam has two parts - The Written Test and the SSB Interview. The written test is 900 marks. It consists of two papers - Maths and GAT. The Maths paper will have 120 questions having 2.5 marks each. Therefore, the full mark for the Maths paper is 300. There will be a negative marking of -0.83 per incorrect answer. The GAT paper will have 150 questions having 4 marks each. There will be a negative marking of -1.33 per the wrong answer. The full mark for the paper is 600. So the total full marks for the written test is 900. 

The interview session will only entertain those candidates who succeed in securing the cutoff marks for NDA. The 5 test is a gruelling one with psychological tests, group tests, fitness checks, interviews, and whatnot. There will be picture perception, description test, thematic apperception test, group tests, individual tests, personal interviews, and a conference to judge you physically, psychologically, and morally.

Precise Cutoff Marks Prediction is Not Possible

Across the internet, you will come across various people predicting the cutoff marks by looking at the previous year’s cutoff marks. However, predicting the NDA cutoff in 2022, or for that matter, any other year, is not possible. For instance, in 2016, the NDA (I) cutoff was 288. It jumped to 342 in 2017. Again in 2018, it plunged to 338. So, it is very hard to predict the NDA cutoff marks.

Conclusion

Logically, the exact cutoff marks for the NDA exam in any given year is not possible to predict. However, it is generally recommended to aim at scoring at least 100 more marks above the previous years’ cutoff, just to be safe.