# TCS NQT 2026 – Complete Exam Experience & Section-wise Review

TCS NQT 2026 – Complete Exam Experience & Section-wise Review

I appeared for the TCS NQT 2026 exam and wanted to share my experience for students preparing for the exam. The exact questions may vary between shifts, but this was my experience.

Numerical Ability

The Numerical section was quite lengthy. The difficulty level was manageable, but the calculations and number of questions made time management difficult.

I would recommend practicing aptitude questions with a timer instead of focusing only on solving them correctly.

Reasoning Ability

The Reasoning section was comparatively easy compared to Numerical.

With proper practice of standard reasoning patterns, the questions were manageable.

Verbal Ability

The Verbal section had some unusual and time-sensitive questions.

Sentence Completion

There was a Sentence Completion question where the sentence/information disappeared after around 25 seconds. You had to understand and remember the information quickly before answering.

Paragraph Recall

There was also a Paragraph Recall question.

A paragraph was displayed for around 30 seconds, after which it disappeared. You then had around 90 seconds to write what you remembered.

You don't need to reproduce the paragraph word-for-word or line-by-line. You need to recall the important information and write the paragraph based on what you remember.

Email Writing

There was also an email-writing task, where the minimum required length was 100 words.

I would recommend practicing professional email writing within a time limit.

Advanced Quantitative Ability

The Advanced Quantitative section was medium level for me.

The questions required knowledge of concepts and reasonable calculation speed. Revising formulas and practicing medium-level questions with a timer would be helpful.

Coding

There was a coding section. One of the problems I got was Maximum Gap.

Problem 1: Maximum Gap

Given an array of integers, find the maximum difference between two consecutive elements after sorting the array.

Example:

Input:
3 6 9 1

Sorted:
1 3 6 9

Gaps:
2, 3, 3

Output:
3

The straightforward approach is to sort the array and then find the maximum difference between consecutive elements.

Problem 2: EV Charging Cost Optimization

Another coding problem was related to electric vehicle charging.

You are given:

• n — number of vehicles
• t — number of charging slots
• mc — maximum capacity of each slot
• vehicles[] — charging requirement of each vehicle
• costs[] — cost per unit at each charging slot
• penalty — penalty per unit of unfulfilled energy

The total charging requirement is the sum of all vehicle requirements. The charging can be distributed among vehicles in any manner.

Each slot can provide at most mc units.

If some energy remains unfulfilled after using the selected slots, a penalty is paid for every unfulfilled unit.

You can skip a charging slot if its cost is greater than the penalty, because paying the penalty is cheaper.

The objective is to find the minimum total cost.

Example Test Case

Input:

n = 3
t = 4
mc = 6

vehicles = [5, 7, 3]

costs = [10, 4, 8, 20]

penalty = 9

Output:
99

Explanation:

Total requirement = 5 + 7 + 3 = 15

Cost 4 → charge 6 units → 24
Cost 8 → charge 6 units → 48

Remaining requirement = 3

Penalty = 3 × 9 = 27

Total cost = 24 + 48 + 27
           = 99

The slots with costs 10 and 20 are skipped because their cost per unit is greater than the penalty of 9.

Important Coding Tip: Be Careful With Input

One thing I strongly recommend is to practice the exact input format used by the coding platform.

Sometimes the problem statement may not clearly indicate whether the input should be treated as an integer or a string. For example, you may expect an array of integers and write:

arr = list(map(int, input().split()))

but if the platform provides the input in a different format, this can result in a ValueError.

If you want to prevent the program from immediately stopping because of an input-conversion error, you can use:

try:
    arr = list(map(int, input().split()))
except ValueError:
    pass

This is especially useful to know during a timed coding exam.

However, don't blindly use try-except without understanding the input. First check the sample input carefully and make sure your input code matches the format expected by the platform.

I would recommend practicing different input formats before the exam, including:

• Integer arrays
• String arrays
• Single integers
• Multiple integers in one line
• Matrix input
• Strings containing spaces

Don't spend valuable exam time debugging an input-format issue when you could be solving the actual problem.

Overall Experience

My experience by section:

Section	Experience
Numerical	Quite lengthy
Reasoning	Comparatively easy
Verbal	Time-sensitive
Advanced Quantitative	Medium
Coding	Problem-solving based

Preparation Tips

For Numerical, focus on speed and calculation-heavy questions.

For Reasoning, practice common TCS-style patterns.

For Verbal, specifically practice:

• Sentence completion under time pressure
• Reading and recalling short paragraphs
• Writing emails of 100+ words

For Advanced Quantitative, revise formulas and practice medium-level questions with a timer.

For Coding, I would recommend practicing:

• Arrays
• Strings
• Sorting
• Searching
• Linked Lists
• Greedy problems
• Basic mathematical problems
• Simple optimization problems

Also, practice taking input in the exact format used by the coding platform. Try different input formats beforehand so that you don't lose time debugging input-related issues during the exam.

One more important thing: time management was one of the biggest challenges, particularly in Numerical and the time-sensitive Verbal questions.

Overall, my experience was that solving questions correctly is important, but solving them within the given time is equally important.

Hope this helps students preparing for TCS NQT. All the best!