NISM Series V-A Chapter-wise Weightage and Syllabus by Unit

ProSyllabus is an independent study site. We are not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the National Institute of Securities Markets, SEBI or AMFI. Every rule below is quoted or summarised from their published documents, and every sum, ratio or date calculation is labelled as our own arithmetic. NISM can change fees, pattern and rules; check the exam page before you pay.

The paper is 100 questions of one mark each, so each weightage percentage is also the number of marks. NISM does not say the exam repeats the split exactly paper by paper, only that the weightage is what the syllabus outline gives; treat the figure as a guide to proportions rather than a guaranteed count of questions.

NISM’s current exam page prints the pattern but not the weightage table, so the question deserves a straight answer. Three things point to the same shape. First, the 2026 Test Objectives page and the Curriculum page use the same 12 unit names in the same order as the 2021 table. Second, the exam specifications in Annexure I match the 2026 exam page (100 questions, 2 hours, 50 to pass, no negative marking). Third, NISM-Series-V-D, launched on 22 July 2026, uses the V-A syllabus as its Module 1 and prints marks for the same 12 chapters in its own Annexure I. Those marks are out of 150, not 100, and they are V-D’s marks, not V-A’s, so the comparison below is a cross-check and not a replacement.

Twelve units are hard to hold in your head. The grouping below is ours, made so each cluster has one kind of study task. The marks are NISM’s unit weights added together.

The Test Objectives page lists numbered learning objectives under every unit. Dividing a unit’s marks by its number of second-level objectives gives a rough density: how many marks a single objective heading stands for. It is our arithmetic and not a NISM figure, and an objective heading can hide many facts, but it shows where each hour of reading is likely to pay.

This is the NISM curriculum, unit by unit, with its lettered sections. The wording follows the NISM Curriculum page; the 2026 Test Objectives page adds numbered learning objectives under each, for example 9.8 on financial transactions with its payment mechanisms and 10.7 on the measures of risk, which include variance, standard deviation, beta, modified duration, weighted average maturity and credit rating. Appendices 1 to 4 (the SEBI Fifth Schedule, the AMFI Code of Ethics, the AMFI Code of Conduct for Intermediaries and additional resources) sit outside the 12 units and are not given a weightage.

Some units are about numbers, and the Test Objectives name them. Unit 7 covers net assets and NAV, mark to market, total expense, perpetual bond valuation, entry and exit load and the NAV of a segregated portfolio. Unit 10 lists simple, annualised, compounded and compounded annual growth return and the SEBI norms on how returns are represented. Unit 11 names Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio, alpha and tracking error and asks you to tell a price return index from a total return index. Unit 8 names capital gains (long and short term), setting off of gains and losses, securities transaction tax, stamp duty, section 80C and TDS. These are the places where a silent calculator is useful, and where a formula remembered wrongly costs a mark. They add to roughly 26 marks by our sum of the weights of Units 7, 8, 10 and 11 (8 + 4 + 7 + 7), though not every question in those units is numeric.

Two tax cautions. NISM’s objectives refer to indexation and to dividend income tax, but tax rates and holding periods change with each Finance Act, and the workbook edition you study from may lag the rules in force on the day of the exam. When a figure matters, check it against the current workbook and the relevant circular rather than a coaching note, and treat any tax-rate table not tied to a dated source with suspicion.

A plan that follows the weights can be built without any coaching estimate. Start with Unit 9 (15 marks, 15 numbered objectives) because it is both the heaviest and the most procedural; follow with Unit 12, which applies what you learn in Units 1, 2 and 10; then Units 4 and 5, which together are 20 marks and mostly rules; then the numbers units 7, 10 and 11; and keep Units 3, 6, 8 and 2 for the end, where the marks are lower and the facts are shorter. Whatever order you pick, finish a full pass of all 12 before a mock paper, because the pass mark of 50 is a single threshold and no unit is optional.