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Online assessment pattern, reported

TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), Online Assessment pattern

TCS National Qualifier Test (NQT) - Corporate / Fresher Online Assessment

190 min totalDifficulty: moderate5 sections

Compiled from public sources, verify before you rely on it. TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) revises this test regularly. Source corroboration: Well-corroborated. Re-checked 2 Nov 2026 against TCS iON's own NQT pages (section counts, timings, no negative marking, in-centre test) and 2024-26 candidate reports (OPR-RES-010). No 2027-batch drive had been announced. Confirm the exact pattern and coding rules on the official TCS NQT notification for your drive.

Test structure

Reported

Part A - Foundation: Numerical Ability

20 (official) questions
25 (official) minutes
  • Number system, simplification, LCM/HCF
  • Ratio & proportion, percentages
  • Profit & loss, averages
  • Time-speed-distance, time & work
  • Mensuration & geometry
  • Probability, permutation & combination
  • Data interpretation
  • Number/series problems

Part A - Foundation: Verbal Ability

25 (official) questions
25 (official) minutes
  • English grammar (official topic): prepositions, tenses, articles, subject-verb agreement
  • Reading comprehension (official topic)
  • Sentence completion
  • Vocabulary / synonyms-antonyms
  • Email writing: one prep site lists it, TCS iON does not, and other prep pages say it was removed. Unconfirmed

Part A - Foundation: Reasoning Ability

20 (official) questions
25 (official) minutes
  • Number/letter series
  • Coding-decoding
  • Blood relations, direction sense
  • Seating arrangement & puzzles
  • Syllogisms, statement-conclusion
  • Data sufficiency
  • Visual/figure reasoning
  • Analogy & classification

Part B - Advanced: Advanced Quantitative & Reasoning Ability (Advanced Aptitude)

about 14-15 (Part B is 16 questions in all, including the coding problems; official) questions
25 (official) minutes
  • Higher-difficulty quantitative aptitude
  • Advanced / critical reasoning
  • Pseudocode output & time-complexity questions
  • Data interpretation

Part B - Advanced: Advanced Coding

2 problems (reported by several candidates) questions
90 (official) minutes
  • Data structures: arrays, strings, hashing, linked lists, stacks, queues, trees, graphs
  • Algorithms: sorting/searching, greedy, basic dynamic programming, graph (BFS/DFS, Kruskal/MST)
  • Read input and print output in the exact format; hidden test cases (about 7 per problem reported)
  • Languages reported by candidates: C, C++, Java, Python, Perl (lists differ between reports)

Reported, tcsion.com, tcsion.com, tcs.com, talentd.in, geeksforgeeks.org, geeksforgeeks.org, geeksforgeeks.org, prepinsta.com, faceprep.in, Well-corroborated

How the test works

Reported

TCS NQT is one integrated test on TCS iON, taken IN PERSON at TCS iON authorised centres (official; not a remote test). It runs 190 minutes: Part A Foundation, 65 questions in 75 minutes (Numerical 20/25 min, Verbal 25/25 min, Reasoning 20/25 min), and Part B Advanced, 16 questions in 115 minutes (Advanced Quantitative and Reasoning 25 min, Advanced Coding 90 min). All of these counts and timings are official (TCS iON and the tcs.com table). There is NO negative marking (official). One score maps to three bands entered through the SAME test: Ninja, Digital and Prime (Prime usually adds an interview round). Navigation: each section is timed and you cannot switch sections (several reports). Whether you can go back to an earlier question within a section is disputed: GeeksforGeeks says no, PrepInsta says yes. Practise as if you cannot. What is NOT settled: TCS gives no split of the 16 Part B questions; 2 coding problems is the common candidate report, which leaves about 14 for Advanced Q&R. One April 2026 candidate described two coding sections (about 30 min easy plus 60 min advanced). Email writing in Verbal is claimed by one prep site and contradicted by TCS iON's topic list. Some prep pages (FACE Prep 2026, Frontlines) still show the pre-2023 format of 80-92 questions; that format is out of date.

Reported, tcsion.com, tcsion.com, tcs.com, talentd.in, geeksforgeeks.org, geeksforgeeks.org, geeksforgeeks.org, prepinsta.com, faceprep.in, Well-corroborated

How the interviews go

Reported
  1. 1Technical
  2. 2Managerial
  3. 3HR

Usually a single in-person panel (TR + MR + HR) the same day after document verification. Ninja: fundamentals and projects. Digital: deeper language internals, DBMS, short paper coding. Prime: project deep-dive, backend/cloud per resume, one DSA problem; FACE Prep claims an AI/data project is now expected (single-report). Common HR checks: shift and relocation flexibility.

Based on several candidates' reports, checked 2 Nov 2026. Interviews vary by drive and interviewer.

Reported by, TCS Prime On-Campus 2025-26 (GfG), TCS Prime April 2026 (GfG), TCS NQT Digital 2026 (GfG)

What to prep

  • Speed aptitude drills under strict per-question time: percentages, ratio, TSD, time & work, P&C, probability, and data interpretation (TCS is time-pressured, not conceptually deep)
  • Reasoning grind: series, coding-decoding, seating/puzzles, syllogisms, blood relations, data sufficiency, direction sense
  • Verbal: grammar and reading comprehension are the two topics TCS iON names; add sentence completion and vocabulary
  • Coding: be able to write 1-2 FULL working solutions with all hidden test cases passing - arrays/strings/hashing, greedy, basic DP, and graphs (BFS/DFS, Kruskal/MST); read input and print output in exactly the stated format; pick one strong language and stick to it
  • Pseudocode: practice C/C++ output-prediction and time-complexity questions for the Advanced Aptitude section
  • Take full-length TIMED mocks with per-section timers and no negative marking, and practise without going back to earlier questions
  • Work TCS NQT previous-year papers (PrepInsta, GeeksforGeeks, IndiaBIX, faceprep) - TCS heavily repeats question archetypes
  • Clear at least one coding question completely - it strongly influences Digital/Prime band eligibility beyond just Ninja

Cut-offs and eligibility (indicative)

Reported

TCS does NOT officially publish NQT cutoffs, and scores are normalised across slots - any specific number online is community-reported and indicative only. Practical (unofficial) target: clear roughly 60-70% in each section and solve at least one coding question fully. One 2024-25 candidate reports that fully solving one coding problem led to a Digital call and 1.5-2 problems to a Prime call (a single report). Rough band percentiles cited by prep sites are not authoritative. Baseline ELIGIBILITY (separate from score), from TCS's own hiring page: 60% or equivalent CGPA in 10th, 12th, diploma and graduation, no pending backlog at the selection process, an academic gap of up to 24 months, and the listed pass-out batches (2024, 2025 and 2026 for the 2026 drive). A prep guide's 7.0 CGPA for Digital/Prime has no TCS source.

Reported, tcsion.com, tcsion.com, tcs.com, talentd.in, geeksforgeeks.org, geeksforgeeks.org, geeksforgeeks.org, prepinsta.com, faceprep.in, Well-corroborated