No, National Talent Search Examination (NTSE) is not that difficult as more than 50% syllabus is from school syllabus of Class IX and X, so if one is thorough in school syllabus, one has a great chance of clearing NTSE Stage 1 by little testing and practice.

National Talent Search Examination (NTSE) is an exam under NTS scheme to award scholarship to students studying at the Class X level. Scholarships are awarded up to Ph.D. in Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, Languages, Commerce, Vocational Studies and Fine arts. And up to second degree level for professional courses in medicines, engineering, technology, management and law.

NTSE is a two-tier examination conducted in two stages. NTS stage-I is conducted by States and Union Territories whereas NCERT conducts stage-II examination.

Scholarships:-

a) Scholarship of Rs 1250/- per month for Class XI and XII
b) Scholarship of Rs 2000/- per month for Undergraduate and Post graduates.
c) Amount if Scholarship for PhD in fixed in accordance with UGC norms.

Exam Pattern

There are 3 papers in both stages –
1. Mental Ability Test (MAT),
2. Language Test and
3. Scholastic Ability Test (SAT).

Questions are in the form of multiple choices with negative marking deducting 1/3 marks.

The tests are available in Asamiya, Bangla, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malyalam, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

However, language test is available in two languages – English & Hindi.

Test No. of Questions Maximum Marks Time
Mental Ability Test (MAT) 50 50 45 minutes
Language Test 50 50 45 minutes
Scholastic Ability Test (SAT) 100 100 90 minutes