NDA II 2026 Expected Cutoff: Real Numbers, Marks vs Attempts and Attempt Strategy

Most NDA candidates spend months on the syllabus and almost no time on the one number that decides everything: the cutoff. They walk in with no clear target, attempt too many questions out of nerves, hand marks back to negative marking, and then wait for a result they could have predicted. The written exam is not only a test of what you know. It is a test of how well you manage two papers with a penalty built into them.

This guide gives you the part the syllabus books skip. The real NDA written cutoffs from recent years, a grounded expected cutoff for NDA II 2026, what negative marking actually does to your score, and how many questions to attempt in each paper. The numbers here are the officially reported UPSC cutoffs, not guesses.

A note on the figures. These are the written cutoffs as reported from UPSC results across recent cycles. Small differences appear between sources for the older years, so always confirm against the official UPSC cutoff PDF after the result. The trend, though, is clear, and that is what you can plan around.

NDA Written Cutoff: The Recent Years

Here is the first thing that makes NDA different from CDS. There are no separate academy cutoffs at the written stage. Every candidate is judged against a single aggregate cutoff out of 900, which is Mathematics out of 300 plus the General Ability Test out of 600. Army, Navy, Air Force and Naval Academy allocation happens later, by merit and preference. So there is one number to clear, and here is how it has moved.

Read the written column and the pattern is less of a smooth slide than CDS and more of a swing. The cutoff sat high through 2021 and 2022, in the 340s to 360, then dropped sharply to around 290 to 300 in 2023 and 2024, rose to 334 in NDA 1 2025, and settled back to about 305 in NDA 2 2025. NDA is more volatile than CDS because a single hard or easy paper moves the whole aggregate, and because the GAT, worth 600 of the 900 marks, swings the score more than any one CDS paper can.

One more thing the NDA 2 2025 result made clear. The figures above are the cutoffs for male candidates. Women compete on a separate, higher cutoff, because far fewer vacancies are open to them. In NDA 2 2025, for example, the written cutoff was 304.90 for men but 358.84 for women, and the final cutoff was 666.01 for men against 737.40 for women. If you are a woman preparing for NDA, plan against the higher bar, not the headline number.

A note on the pending cycle. NDA 1 2026 was held but its written cutoff was not published at the time of writing, since UPSC releases it only after the full process finishes. When it lands, expect it somewhere inside the recent band above.

Expected Cutoff for NDA II 2026

Because the recent cutoffs have swung between roughly 290 and 335, rather than settling on one figure, the honest expected range for NDA II 2026 is a band, not a point. On the recent pattern, a realistic written cutoff to aim past is:

About 300 to 340 out of 900 for male candidates, and roughly 350 to 365 for female candidates.

The practical message inside those numbers is the one that changes how you sit the paper. A cutoff of around 320 out of 900 is roughly 36 percent of the written marks. You do not need a spectacular score. You need a solid, safe, mistake free one, and that is a far more achievable target than most candidates assume. Aim to clear 360 comfortably and you have real margin.

The Final Cutoff Is Higher, and Different

Clearing the written cutoff does not select you. It takes you to the SSB interview, which is scored separately out of 900, and the final merit is your written score plus your SSB score together, out of 1800. Look again at the table. The written bar sits around 300 to 335, but the final bar has been around 654 to 726. That gap is the SSB, and it is enormous, because the interview carries the same 900 marks as the entire written exam.

That tells you something important. Clearing the written stage comfortably gives you a base, but the SSB decides as much of your fate as both written papers combined. Aim well past the written cutoff, not just over it, because a strong written score buys you nothing at the SSB, and a weak one leaves you no cushion.

One Qualifying Rule You Cannot Ignore

There is a detail many candidates miss. On top of the aggregate cutoff, UPSC sets a minimum qualifying mark of around 25 percent in each subject, in both Mathematics and the GAT. So you cannot clear the written stage on one paper alone. A candidate who scores brilliantly in the GAT but falls below the Maths minimum does not qualify, no matter how high the total. Keep both papers safely above their own bar before you chase the aggregate.

What Negative Marking Actually Does to Your Score

Here is the part almost nobody works out on paper, and it is the most useful thing in this article.

Every NDA question has four options. In Mathematics a correct answer earns 2.5 marks and a wrong one costs 0.83, a third of the value. In the GAT a correct answer earns 4 marks and a wrong one costs 1.33, again a third. Now think about what a blind guess is worth on average. One time in four you get it right and gain the full mark. Three times in four you get it wrong and lose a third each time. Add it up and, in both papers, a pure random guess is worth exactly zero on average. The gain from the lucky one cancels the loss from the unlucky three.

That has two consequences, and they pull in opposite directions.

First, blind guessing does not help you. Over a full paper it nets to nothing on average, and it carries real risk of dragging you below zero on a bad run. So the popular advice to just fill every bubble is wrong for NDA.

Second, and this is the key, the moment you can rule out even one option, the maths flips in your favour. Eliminate one of the four and a guess among the remaining three becomes positive on average. Eliminate two and it is clearly worth taking. So the skill that clears NDA is not knowing every answer. It is elimination. A question where you can confidently cross out two wrong options is a question you should attempt, even when you are unsure of the final answer.

So How Many Should You Attempt

Forget fixed attempt targets. The right number is not a count, it is a rule about quality.

• Attempt every question you know, and every question where you can eliminate two options. These are all positive on average, so leave none behind.
• Attempt a question where you can eliminate only one option if you are reasonably comfortable. It is slightly positive, but the margin is thin.
• Leave a question where you cannot eliminate anything. A blind guess here is, on average, wasted, and on a bad day it costs you.

Follow that and your attempt count takes care of itself. A well prepared candidate usually attempts a large majority of each paper, not because they aimed for a number, but because on most questions they can rule out at least two options. The ones they leave are the genuine unknowns, and leaving those is a decision, not a failure.

The Smart Attempt Strategy, Paper by Paper

Do each paper in two passes. First pass, go start to finish and answer only what you know cold, quickly. Second pass, return to the questions worth a considered attempt, where elimination gets you to two options or fewer. This stops you burning ten minutes on one hard question while easy marks sit unread later in the paper.

Guard the GAT, because it carries the marks. At 600 of the 900 written marks and 4 marks a question, the GAT swings your aggregate more than Maths ever can, and a wrong answer there costs the most. Secure the static science, geography and history you have revised, apply elimination on the rest, and keep it safely above its 25 percent minimum. Our five year NDA analysis shows exactly where those GAT marks sit, and it is heavier on Physics than most candidates expect.

In the GAT English half, elimination is your friend. Synonyms, antonyms and idioms are the largest slice, and even when you do not know a word cold you can often rule out two options on sense alone. Those are exactly the attempts negative marking rewards.

Mathematics rewards accuracy over coverage. A wrong maths answer usually comes from a silly slip, not a lucky guess, so the marks you protect by checking your working are worth more than the marks you chase by rushing extra questions. Solve what you are sure of cleanly, then use elimination on the rest.

The only way to build this instinct is to practice it under time. Work through NDA past papers chapter by chapter on Padhify, then take full NDA mock tests for both papers and, after each one, count two numbers: how many you got wrong that you should have left, and how many you left that you could have eliminated into. Those two numbers are your real attempt strategy, and they improve fast once you start watching them.

A Realistic Word Before the Exam

The candidates who clear NDA are rarely the ones who attempted the most. They are the ones who attempted the smartest. They knew the written target was somewhere around 36 to 40 percent, not some heroic score. They treated every question as a small bet and took only the bets that paid. And they knew the SSB was still half the battle, so they built a written score with margin instead of scraping the line.

You cannot control how hard the papers are or exactly where the cutoff lands. You can control how many marks you hand back to carelessness, and in an exam with negative marking on both papers, that control is often the whole difference between selection and a near miss.

If you are in the final stretch, pair this with our NDA 30 day chapter priority plan to know what to revise, and practice every NDA past paper on Padhify to turn that revision into marks. For dates and eligibility, see the NDA 2026 exam guide.

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