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Home / Insights / NDA II 2024 vs NDA II 2023

NDA II 2024 vs NDA II 2023 — what changed

150 vs 150 questions · answer-keyed 149/150 vs 150/150 · NDA

Executive summary

  • Question style: 19% of NDA II 2024 was analytical (multi-statement) vs 17% in 2023 — broadly unchanged in style.
  • Subject mix was broadly stable year on year (no subject moved beyond normal variation).
  • 12 concepts recurred from 2023; 12 appeared that were absent in 2023.

Conceptual vs factual

Analytical (multi-statement) questions: 17% in 2023 → 19% in 2024 — broadly unchanged in style.
Show evidence — how this is measured
Analytical = statement-based, assertion-reason, match-the-following, pairs, how-many-correct and sequence questions; factual = single-fact recall. NDA II 2024: 28 analytical / 122 factual. NDA II 2023: 25 analytical / 125 factual.

Subject distribution

Subject20232024Δ
English Language5050+0stable
Science & Technology4947-2stable
Geography1920+1stable
History1210-2stable
Current Affairs & Static GK55+0stable
Polity & Governance26+4stable
International Relations33+0stable
Economy23+1stable
Quantitative Aptitude13+2stable
Defence & Military Studies31-2stable
Art & Culture30-3stable
Social Issues & Welfare02+2stable
Agriculture10-1stable
"Gained/declined" is flagged only where the change is ≥3 questions and ≥3 percentage points; smaller moves are normal year-to-year variation (shown as stable).

Concept-level changes

Recurring — in both papers

Industrial RevolutionVijayanagara EmpireBuoyancyElectrical resistanceDensityFive Year PlansBhoodan MovementKaveri RiverAustraliaNagalandArunachal PradeshOptics

New this year

IndiaTerminal velocity ★C. RajagopalachariMahatma GandhiUnited StatesChinaTibet ★Right to Education ActAntarcticaGroup of TwentyAnimal tissuesCellular respiration

Not tested this year

AlloysPhotosynthesisDisplacement reactionDecomposition reactionSexual reproductionMeiosisSexual reproduction in plantsSeparation techniquesScattering of lightSpeed of light
★ = first appearance in the corpus. Not tested this year ≠ dropped — concepts often return. Click any concept for its full cross-exam history (your evidence). Tagging is provisional, so this layer is directional.

Cross-exam connections

Recurring concepts here that also travel across other UPSC exams — the same idea, reframed. Click any for its full timeline.
Vijayanagara Empireallied → CSE
CAPF 2014 → CDS 2015 → CSE 2019 → NDA 2021 → CISF 2021 → GEO 2023 → EPFO 2023
Industrial Revolutionallied → CSE
CDS 2014 → NDA 2020 → CSE 2020
Optics
CSE 1979 → CDS 2014 → CAPF 2018 → GEO 2021 → NDA 2021 → CISF 2022
Buoyancy
CSE 1979 → CDS 2019 → EPFO 2020 → NDA 2021 → GEO 2023
Arunachal Pradesh
CSE 2007 → CDS 2014 → CAPF 2019 → NDA 2023 → LDCE 2025
Density
CSE 1979 → CDS 2018 → NDA 2021 → GEO 2022

Preparation takeaways

  • No subject or style change was large enough to act on with confidence; keep a balanced preparation across subjects.
Methodology & caveats
All figures are computed from CrispUPSC's verified PYQ corpus — no opinions, no predictions, no AI-written analysis. A single paper per year is a small, noisy sample, so a two-year difference is a change, not a trend; a subject is flagged as moved only when it shifts ≥3 questions and ≥3 percentage points. Concept tagging is provisional, so concept lists are directional. "Not tested this year" never means a concept was dropped. This page explains how UPSC has changed; it does not predict future papers.
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