NSTSE study guide
NSTSE · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The National Level Science Talent Search Examination (NSTSE) is an olympiad-style assessment conducted by Unified Council, an organisation that describes itself as India's first ISO 9001:2015 certified body in testing and assessment. NSTSE is one of several Unified Olympiads listed on the council's site, alongside UIMO, UICO, UIEO and UIGKO. The exam is offered in two modes: an offline exam taken through a participating school, and an online exam open to direct students. For the 2026-27 cycle the site lists the offline exam date as 18-09-2026 and the online exam date as 27-12-2026. Topics on this exam: Science, Mathematics, and General Ability / Aptitude. The NSTSE study guide has 3 sections and about 958 words.
01Science: applying physics, chemistry and biology to unfamiliar situations
The NSTSE Science section tests whether you can apply physics, chemistry and biology ideas, not just recite them. Questions at your class level ask you to predict, explain or calculate rather than reproduce a definition. Expect motion and force, electricity, light, matter and reactions, living systems and ecology, often wrapped in a data table or diagram you must interpret. The correct option usually follows from one clean principle, so identify the principle before you compute.
334 words, about 2 min02Mathematics: method, number sense and multi-step accuracy
The NSTSE Mathematics section tests method and number sense at your class level, with an emphasis on multi-step accuracy. Arithmetic, ratio and proportion, percentage, algebra, geometry, mensuration and data handling all appear. Most items are only one or two steps deep, but each step hides a decision: which base a percentage uses, which unit a ratio needs, or whether a formula wants radius or diameter. Write the intermediate line; do not do it all in your head.
311 words, about 2 min03General Ability: verbal, logical and spatial reasoning
The NSTSE General Ability section measures reasoning speed and precision across verbal, logical and spatial items. Series and analogies, coding–decoding, blood relations, direction sense, syllogisms, ranking and simple figure reasoning are typical. These are not syllabus questions: the marks come from spotting the rule quickly, then testing that rule against every option rather than stopping at the first plausible one. Series: test differences first, then ratios, then alternating patterns; if neither works, check squares, cubes and primes.
313 words, about 2 min