A Fresher’s Guide For TCS NextStep 2021

Introduction

Graduation marks the onset of an upcoming tenure of responsibility, independence, and exposure to the real world. For some students, this time is often stressful as they seek a placement in their dream companies but often can’t make it due to several factors.

In such a situation students often lose hope and settle for other things. But why not passionately chase what you want and have worked hard for?

TCS NextStep offers a web portal to freshers and to help them apply for jobs under Tata Consultancy Firms. This helps the freshers to kickstart their new journey with a much greater beginning and hence gives them a fair chance at life.

This not only helps them get placed in a huge company located in pan India but also provides a good chance for off-campus job seekers. It helps them connect to the campus commune and TCS com. Once they register on this portal they can accordingly update their skills on the portal itself and increase their chances of selection.

The national level entry exam – National Qualifier Test is common for all applicants. The TCS CBO salary and promotions differ from other employees. This exam also lets you sit for TCS CBO which is a domain in TCS to group BPS workers to work on IT projects. It gives you a chance to appear for off-campus placements and bag a good placement concerning other job posts as well according to the vacancies offered.

This article offers all you need to know about TCS NextStep in order to ace the preparation and perform great to finally land up in one of your dream companies that you’ve been working for.

Eligibility

The eligibility criteria for TCS NextStep is as follows:

• The aspirant should have B. Tech, BE, MCA, M.Tech, ME, BCA, MBA, M.Sc, B.Sc, B.Com, M.Com, MA, BA, Any PG, Any Graduate.
• The aspirants should have a higher than 60% aggregate.
• The aspirants should not have more than three years of industry experience.
• There should not be any backlogs.
• Up to 24 months of break/gap is allowed with a valid reason.

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Exam Pattern

The following is the exam process and the pattern regarding TCS NextStep:

The exam conducted by the TCS is a National level exam called National Qualifier Test (TCS NQT) conducted to test the aspirant’s aptitude and their technical knowledge. It is conducted twice a year and the score obtained in this is valid for two years and could be used to procure a placement.

The test conducted under this is both programming and aptitude bases unlike those of TCS Inframind and google Kickstart.

There are two sections under the NQT:

Mandatory NQT

1. Verbal Ability

The applicant has to go through a pool of 24 questions over a time span of 30 minutes and solve them to the max of their accuracy. These questions don’t carry any negative marking. Under this, the topics to be studied include word completion, sentence completion, meanings, arrangement, and error identification followed by a reading comprehension section. The applicant is tested on their grammatical skills such as tenses, modals, spellings, nouns, subject-verb agreement, etc.

2. Numerical Ability

This section contains 26 questions with a time limit of 40 minutes. There is no negative marking. The topics like mensuration, number system, arithmetic ability, elementary statistics, simplifications and approximations, and data interpretation are widely asked and covered under this section. A fair knowledge of elementary maths and some intricate concepts could help you lead your way through this section.

3. Reasoning Ability

This section is the newest section introduced by the TCS and is supposed to have 30 questions with a time limit of 50 minutes. This will test the applicants largely on the basis of their problem-solving abilities coupled with numerical patterns, identifying words, propositional and visual reasoning. This section has no negative marking as well.

Subject NQT

It is a mandatory section too for students of all disciplines and all branches.

1. Programming Logic: This section consists of 10 questions to be solved within a time limit of 15 minutes. The topics that are expected in this section are the basics of C, OOPs, data structures and some questions around other topics. There is no negative marking.

2. Hands-on (Coding Round 1): This section consists of a single coding question that has to be solved within 15 minutes. There is no negative marking.

 3. Hands-on (Coding Round 2): This section consists of a single coding question that has to be solved within 30 minutes. There is no negative marking.

Previously Asked Questions

This section gives you a basic idea of the type of coding questions asked in TCS NQT.

• Remove vowels from a string: Given a string, remove all occurrences of vowels from the string. Practice on CodeStudio
• Armstrong Number: Given a number, find if it’s an Armstrong number or not. An Armstrong number is one that returns the same number when the kth power of each digit is summed up. Practice on CodeStudio
• Reverse Number: Given a number n, find the reversed form of n. Practice on CodeStudio
• Print Diagonal: You are given a 2D matrix, print a 2D vector containing all elements of the matrix in a diagonal type. Solve on CodeStudio
• Pythagorean triplets: Given three numbers, find if they are Pythagorean triplets or not. Solve on CodeStudio

Prerequisites

The prerequisites for appearing in TCS Drive 2021 are:

• Knowledge of C one programming language. The two Hands-on rounds and the programming ability round are based on programming concepts.
• A good problem-solving skillset and other verbal and numerical abilities are a must as the Mandatory NQT section essentially involves questions around it.

How to Register?

You can register on the TCS NextStep portal here. Then you can follow the instructions within the portal to navigate through and register for the NQT and check the schedule and verify documents while registering.

Preparation Tips

Topics you need to prepare to ace the exam:

• Programming Fundamentals with C
• Object-Oriented Programming Concepts
• Data Structures and Algorithms
• Advanced-Data Structures and Algorithms
• Numerical Abilities
• Logical Reasoning
• Propositional Logic
• English Grammar

For getting a better insight into these topics you can refer to the articles and blogs around these topics, especially for the coding practice. You can even practice similar questions from CodeStudio. Similarly for understanding the fundamentals of Object-Oriented Programming you could refer to the books and blogs concerning it. You can even apply for TCS iBegin, TCS Digital, TCS InfraMind, TCS HackQuest, and TCS CodeVita for further practice by going through the TCS Infarmind registration and registering for the same.

Frequently Asked Questions

Key Takeaways

TCS NextStep is an amazing opportunity for all the entry-level graduates to sit for off-campus placements and ace in them. It offers them a fair chance to compete with aspirants all over India by appearing for TCS NQT.

This national level exam gives them a great experience of all the aptitude-based and programming topics. It tests them over a variety of fields. The campus commune section lets you interact with their employee network and let you know everything you need to know before entering the company.

This is also an amazing opportunity to interact and network with like-minded people with similar interests.       

By Pooja Gera