The National Testing Service runs tests for university admissions, teaching posts, scholarships and recruitment, and the paper changes with the purpose. What does not change much is the core: verbal, quantitative and analytical ability, with a general knowledge section attached.
Aptitude, not syllabus
This is the real difference between an NTS paper and a commission paper. A PPSC or FPSC paper mostly asks what you know. An NTS paper mostly asks what you can work out — sentence completion, analogies, number series, ratios, basic geometry, simple logic.
That changes how practice works. Reading more will not move an aptitude score much; attempting more questions will, because the gain comes from recognising the shape of a problem quickly rather than from recalling a fact.
The quantitative section rewards arithmetic you can do in your head
Most NTS quantitative questions are solvable in under a minute without a calculator, and are designed that way. Percentages, ratios, averages, speed and distance, simple interest, and the basic area and volume formulas cover the great majority. Speed on exactly those is worth more than familiarity with anything harder.
English is the most improvable section
Sentence completion, synonyms, antonyms and prepositions follow a fairly small set of patterns, and the vocabulary that recurs in these tests is far smaller than a dictionary. This is usually the fastest place to gain marks for anyone who is short of time.
Check your own test's pattern
NTS publishes a syllabus and a composition for each test it announces, and the weightings genuinely differ between a GAT, an NAT and a recruitment test. Download the one for the test you have applied for rather than preparing for a generic NTS paper, and check whether yours applies negative marking — not all of them do, and that single fact changes how you should attempt it.
Where to go next
The buttons above open the subject banks, each question with its answer and a written explanation. The NTS preparation guide covers the test pattern and a study order if you want those first.