Overview
Tata Consultancy Services conducts the National Qualifier Test (NQT) for its selection process from a large pool of candidates. Hundreds of thousands of software engineers and students from other backgrounds apply through this TCS NQT test to be a part of this organization. The competition is extreme, and also the test pattern is designed in such a way that helps score marks if you are well-prepared. So it is important to study the important concepts well and start preparing for this exam several months before the actual event. There are a variety of topics to be covered, and I can help you understand the key topics that you need to learn from the TCS NQT syllabus. What topics should you focus more on? What does the interviewer want to know about you?
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NQT Registration Date
Apply for TCS NQT here. The Registration Last Date for the Sep exam is 4th Sep 2023.
TCS NQT Exam Date
The TCS NQT Exam Date 2023 is 16th Sep 2023 onwards. TCS NQT Results will be declared shortly after the exam.
TCS NQT Results
The TCS NQT Results are declared within 1 week of the TCS NQT Exam in the TCS official site.
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The TCS BPS profile is for Arts, Commerce, and Science candidates.
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The TCS profile is for candidates who are ready to support the IT infrastructure services operations.
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The TCS contact email is ilp.support@tcs.com. The TCS contact phone number is 18002093111.
The TCS NQT exam has eligibility requirements. The TCS NQT Eligibility Checker Tool below will help you find if you can apply for the TCS NQT Exam.
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TCS NQT Syllabus
The first place to start preparing is knowing what you are dealing with. This means the TCS NQT syllabus. The TCS NQT is structured into different sections. The TCS NQT Foundation section, and the TCS NQT Advanced section. Each of these sections have some overlapping topics that you will see, however the complexity of the questions varies between the sections considerably. You are maybe dealing with simple equations for questions on the same topic in one section, whereas in the more advanced section you maybe handling scenarios with multiple variables. As an interviewer I would like to see an all-round performance from you in all the sections. Maybe you are good in one topic but not the other, what can you do before the exam to improve yourself? Many candidates are often so good at coding they study more the other topics, or candidates who are so good in verbal tend to focus only on coding, and thus lose critical easy marks due to an unbalanced study plan. The key to successfully preparing for each of the TCS NQT topics is having a proper study plan and exhaustive practice for each of the sections.
- TCS NQT Foundation Section - The TCS NQT Foundation Section consists of evaluation questions on your Numerical Ability, Verbal Ability, Reasoning Ability, and also your Personality Traits. You can expect about 25 minutes for each of the section, except Personality Traits which is less than a couple of minutes. We will learn about each of these sections in details. Practice is key. I would recommend spend at least 30 minutes of your time daily practicing the questions from each of the topics. Focus on your speed as well as accuracy, and keep a note of the topics which you find more challenging than the others. This will help you improve your weak areas while keeping your strong areas fresh. Set aside some time from your current daily schedule and then take my practice tests every few days to test your skill. Remember that you get a new set of questions in each attempt of my practice tests.
- TCS NQT Advanced Section - The TCS NQT Advanced Section consists of advanced questions from some topics in the TCS NQT Foundation section, and then some. So we have Advanced Quantitative Aptitude, Advanced Reasoning Ability, and Advanced Coding questions. Time allocated is around 20 minutes for the first two, and nearly an hour for the Advanced Coding section. So even though the time provided is not too little, it is also not too much if you are not ready with strategic preparation. There are a variety of topics that needs planned preparation to score well in the TCS NQT Advanced Section. Even if you are good with numbers and logical reasoning, it will not be wise to focus only on a few areas like coding. During the exam you might see the coding questions came comparatively easier which nearly everyone scored well in, which thus can affect your percentile score and thus chances of qualifying. See my practice tests to understand more, and if you can score well here you can be sure your preparation is on the right track.
Read more: What is the Passing Marks of TCS NQT? »
TCS NQT Foundation Section
When you are preparing for the TCS NQT Foundation Section, all that you have studied in school and during your college semesters come into play. Starting from the basics of the number system, to geometry, mensuration, language skills, logical reasoning skills, everything comes in to play in that single test completed in less than a couple of hours. Speed and accuracy is thus the key.
- TCS NQT Numerical Ability - One of the most important topics of the TCS NQT Foundation Section is Numerical Ability and Quantitative Aptitude. You already have an advantage if you are good with numbers, or have been preparing for other competitive exams that also require you to have good number skills. This section focuses on various types of problems covering time, distance, speed, work, profit, loss, percentage, permutation, combinations, and conceptual problems. Based on the difficulty level, you may have to deal with single variables or multiple variables, accordingly your equations will become complex. How quickly can you eliminate variables and arrive at the conclusion? The TCS NQT Numerical Ability Foundation Section will thus put you to the ultimate test of being fluent with the number system and doing calculations. When you take my practice test you will get an idea of a variety of questions covering each of these topics.
- TCS NQT Verbal Ability - The Verbal Ability questions are often regarded as one of the easiest topics among all the topics in the TCS NQT Foundation Section topics. You need not be an expert in your communication skills to be able to crack the TCS NQT Verbal Ability questions. But you need to be well-read, well-spoken, be able to comprehend, and able to form complete sentences to score well in this section. Even if you have not been engaged in activities that involve speaking a lot, with some extra effort in reading and comprehension, you can do well in the TCS NQT Verbal Ability questions. I do not only want to see how good you are in sentence formation and prepositions, I would like to assess you overall on your comprehensive verbal skills. If you are able to score well in my practice tests here, you can be sure you are in decent shape and ready for the exam. Otherwise, carefully read the real-time feedbacks that my practice tests give you for each of the questions, relearn, and then retake the practice tests.
- TCS NQT Reasoning Ability - Reasoning Ability questions feature among some of the most challenging areas in the TCS NQT Foundation Section questions. I would like to see you fluently analyze family relation questions, seating arrangement questions, alphanumeric series questions, statement and conclusion or argument type questions, and more. The questions and logic might seem the same when you get to practice a lot of these problems, but the subtle differences and added variations often make one question become an outlier. If you have been practicing you can tackle such exceptional problems better, and can even solve them within the stipulated time of the exam. It might seem some topics are known so why practice again. But it is important to note that with good speed you incrementally save up valuable time which you can devote to the other questions. With this type of assessment questions, I get to understand how clearly and how fast you can grasp a situation and think logically to arrive at a conclusion.
- Personality Traits - In this test I can test various qualities in you like your character strength in different situations. The test also assess on DiSC qualities i.e. dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness. I want to see how you perform if under pressure, how you thrive in a team, how you interact in collaborative environments, how you deal with unknown situations. Personality tests are given more importance in today’s business environment than ever before. There are various scientific fields of study based on which questions are delicately crafted. Your answer to one question might be creating data points for an overall personality analysis that the question have not mentioned specifically. The basic requirement is to have a motivated individual who is eager to take up learning new things and step up with stellar performances when posed with a challenging situation. Even though the questions take little time to answer, make sure you prepare well and carefully choose your answers. For sample questions see my practice tests here and get ready for the actual exam.
Keep reading: Can I appear in TCS NQT? »
TCS NQT Advanced Section
If you are aiming to score high in the TCS NQT Advanced Section, you need to gear up with all the necessary skills for all the topics in the TCS NQT Syllabus. You need to be the best version that you can be to beat the competition. Practice all the different scenarios that you can, across all the skill sets that you own. With the dynamic nature of the TCS NQT, only an equally dynamic level of preparation can help you succeed.
- Advanced Quantitative Ability - The Advanced Quantitative Ability topic consists of questions from exactly what you would expect - more complex questions from the same chapters that assess your numerical ability skills. If it is not enough to practice with a variety of scenarios, now you have to deal with questions that consist of more than one part, that asks you to find answer to a secondary question. You may also have to analyze scenarios that have multiple steps of calculation to arrive at the answer. Advanced Quantitative Aptitude questions help an interviewer see the depth of your abilities. How far you can reach into your analytical skills to derive answers to the questions presented before you. It often needs more skills than to be good with numbers, which technique do you use for which scenario, with planned preparation you can overall save 10-15 seconds for every question. This can add up to quite a few minutes which you can then devote to your harder problems. Check the questions from my practice test here to learn more about what you can expect in the actual exam.
- Advanced Reasoning Ability - The Advanced Logical Reasoning topic consists of questions that require you to be able to answer more complex reasoning questions. If you have not practiced many of these questions before, you may take quite a while to figure out and solve these problems. I would want to see you answer a variety of these types of problems even if you have not came across such problems in the past. For example, I can create a new type of puzzle or problem that you may have never experienced during your preparation. But if you have your fundamentals strong, you will be able to proceed with the analysis of the questions in the right direction. With some focused effort you will also be able to answer the questions. It thus comes more down to your ability to analyze and how quick you can process the information presented to you, with practice you just get better. See my practice exams to build up your skills and learn more with real-time feedbacks.
- Advanced Coding - The Advanced Coding topic consists of questions from a variety of concepts that you may already be aware of. I recommend you get very comfortable in algorithms, and implementing the most popular data structures using C, Python, and Java. Having a good grasp on these topics will help you confidently approach many problems that you can expect in the TCS NQT Advanced Coding questions. I would ask you to do special reading on programming best practices, especially memory utilization of the codes that you may write. Because a good code is not only the one that just works fine, but that helps execute the result with minimal resources. I like green coding. A code that consumes minimum resources and system processing power, and thus overall less energy to run. I would like to see complex codes that use less number of lines, which run fast, and are easily scalable to future requirements.
Keep on reading: Is TCS NQT easy? »
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