New India Assurance (NIA) is all set to conduct the online exam for recruitment of AO (scale I). The exam is scheduled to be conducted on 10^th and 11^th of January 2015. The admit card download has started you can download your admit card by clicking here. NIA has also published an information handout for better understanding of the paper and pattern. You can view the official handout click here.

In this post let us try to understand the Syllabus, Exam Pattern  and the difficulty level of the paper for better preparation.

New India Assurance AO Exam Pattern

NIA online exam will be of 200 marks. There will be 200 questions and you will be given a time limit of 120 minutes. The questions will be of multiple choice objective types. Other than the English paper (needs to be answered by all in English), you can attempt the paper either in Hindi or English according to your choice.

The breakup of the question paper pattern (for Generalist) is as follows:

S No	Section	No of questions	Full marks	Total time allotted
1	Reasoning	50	50	Composite time of 120 minutes
2	English Language	50	50
3	General Awareness	50	50
4	Quantitative Aptitude	50	50
	Total	200	200

As you can see the paper will be divided into 4 sections: Reasoning (50 questions 50 marks), English Language (50 questions 50 marks), General Awareness (50 questions 50 marks) and Quantitative Aptitude (50 questions 50 marks). All the sections will have same number of questions (=50) and carry same marks (=50). [Point being DO NOT confuse this pattern with the UIIC exam pattern].

For Specialist

S. No	Name of Test	Type of Test	Maximum Marks	Medium of Exam	Duration
1	Test of Reasoning	Objective	40	Eng/ Hindi	120 mins. .
2	Test of English Language	Objective	40	Eng
3	Test of General Awareness	Objective	40	Eng/ Hindi
4	Test of Quantitative aptitude	Objective	40	Eng/ Hindi
5	In Specialist stream, an additional test to assess technical& professional knowledge in the relevant discipline	Objective	40	Eng/ Hindi
	Total (Aggregate)		200

There will be negative marking for wrong answer, 1/4th of the allotted marks will be deducted for each wrong answer.

Difficulty level

New India Assurance is conduction the online exam for recruiting Administrative Officers (AO) (Scale I). You can expect questions of similar standard as that of Bank PO paper. The reasoning questions and the Quantitative aptitude questions will require practice. General Awareness will need you to have through knowledge about the current financial and economic scenario. English will be of the standard of Xth or XIIth. Overall, you can expect moderate to hard difficulty level in the paper.

Study pattern

Reasoning: There will be 50 questions of 50 marks. The question can be twisted or direct. You can expect questions on analogies, similarities and differences, analysis, judgments, decision making, relationship concepts, arithmetical reasoning, syllogistic reasoning, sitting arrangements, living arrangements, input –output, statements and assumptions etc.

The questions can seem to be time consuming and a bit confusing if you do not have enough practice. It helps if you attempt the questions with an open and un-cluttered mind.

Quantitative Aptitude: This section consists of 50 questions of 50 marks. The difficulty level can range from moderate to difficult. So do not take this section lightly. Quant can be scoring if you have adequate practice. You need to be fast and accurate with the calculations.

Syllabus in this section is similar to that of the bank PO papers. You can expect questions from Data Interpretation, Percentage, Ratio & Proportion, Square roots, Averages, Interest, Profit and Loss, Discount, Partnership Business, Time and distance, Time & Work, Basic Algebra etc.

Read the questions carefully before attempting. This might be an old suggestion that you grew up hearing but it is worth repeat. Often in hurry we get down to solving questions with just half reading the question only to figure out later that there might have been a shorter way of solving or may b a totally different question is asked! Do not panic if you cannot answer a certain question or questions. The key is to keep calm and move on to the next question.

General Awareness: This section consists of 50 questions of 50 marks. Difficulty level will be moderate to high (depending on your preparation).

Mostly direct questions are asked but it would require thorough preparation and a good grasp of the current economic and financial happenings. You can expect nearly 75-80% questions focused on the economy. The rest will be from current affairs and general Gk. Usually major questions are from Economic survey, Union Budget of the current year, RBI policies, any major economic policies launched by the government etc. You should know the basic economic terms and their implications.

English: There will be 50 questions of 50 marks. Easy to moderate difficulty level questions are usually asked. Questions are set to test the basic Higher secondary level English, to test your understanding ability of Synonyms, antonyms, sentence formation, English comprehension, sentence correction, point out the error, fill in the gaps etc.

Wish you good luck!