Trends
NDA English 2026 is not the NDA English from 2017
The chapter mix has shifted dramatically over the 10-year window. Grammar exploded, Spotting Errors went quiet, Cloze returned after a 6-year gap. If you only practiced one cohort of papers, you have a blind spot.
- years analysed
- 10
- papers
- 18
- questions tagged
- 900
- chapters tracked
- 8
The 4 biggest shifts
Four chapters have visibly moved across the 2017–2026 window — two on the rise (Grammar, Cloze), two in decline (Errors, FIB).
- Grammar exploded post-2024 — from 0 to 40 q/year
The single biggest drift in NDA English. 2017–2018 had ZERO Grammar questions. 2019–2020 introduced 10/year. Then 2024+ broke wide open — 30, 40, 18 in the half-paper. Sentence Completion (30 q across 2 years) and Discourse Markers (20 q) were essentially invented for the post-2024 papers. If you only practiced 2017–2022 papers, you are seriously under-prepared for the modern format.
- Spotting Errors went silent in 2024–25, returned in 2026
After holding a steady 10–20 q/paper-set for 2017–2023, Spotting Errors completely disappeared in 2024 and 2025 — zero questions both years. The 2026 NDA-1 brought it back with 5 q. The likely explanation: the format-change that expanded Grammar absorbed the Errors-style rule-testing questions into the new Sentence Completion format. If 2026 NDA-2 doubles down, expect Spotting Errors to land at ~10 q again.
- Cloze Test returned in 2024 after a 6-year gap
Cloze Test was a 2017–2018 feature (25 q across those two years), then disappeared entirely 2019–2023. The 2024 paper brought it back at 20 q (4 cloze passages × 5 blanks). The principle: paper-setters cycle question formats — when something disappears, it's pause-not-removal. The Cloze toolkit is the same as Grammar's Discourse Markers — drill those if Cloze appears again.
- Fill in the Blanks faded after 2023
FIB had a 2017–2023 baseline of 10–15 q/year, then dropped to 0 across 2024, 2025, and 2026 NDA-1. The likely cause: Sentence Completion (new in 2024) tests the same vocab-in-context skill in a slightly different format. If FIB returns, the Synonyms playbook word work covers it.
Year-by-year drift
Counts per year (NDA-1 + NDA-2 combined; 2020 NDA-2 was COVID-cancelled, 2026 NDA-2 not yet held). Cells are tinted by row magnitude — your eye picks up the slope without a chart.
| Chapter | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vocabulary | 30 | 30 | 40 | 20 | 40 | 40 | 45 | 20 | 30 | 21 |
| Spotting Errors | 20 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Sentence Rearrangement | 14 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 0 |
| Grammar | 0 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 40 | 18 |
| Idioms and Phrases | 0 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 20 | 20 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 6 |
| Reading Comprehension | 6 | 20 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 0 |
| Fill in the Blanks | 10 | 15 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cloze Test | 20 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 |
Recommendation: drill 2024+ papers FIRST
The 2024 format change is the biggest single discontinuity in the 10-year window. Grammar went from ~0 to 30+ q/year, Cloze returned, Spotting Errors disappeared. Pre-2024 papers will undertrain you on Sentence Completion and Connectors — two playbooks that are essentially post-2024 inventions.