JNVST 2027 Syllabus: Mental Ability, EVS, Arithmetic and Language Topics

NVS does not publish a separate syllabus booklet for the Navodaya test: the syllabus is the “Nature of the test” section of the prospectus, with directions and a sample for each question type. For JNVST 2027 that section was rewritten. Mental Ability shrank from ten question types to five, a new Environmental Studies (EVS) part arrived with its own topic list, and three arithmetic topics were removed. This guide lays out the 2027 syllabus section by section, marks what is new and what was dropped, and suggests how a Class V child can cover it before 28 November 2026.

The sections are not equally new to a Class V child. Language and much of EVS draw on reading and general knowledge the child already uses at school; Arithmetic follows the Class III–V curriculum; Mental Ability is the one section with question types most children have never seen in class. That is why a few weeks of regular figure practice usually moves the score more than anything else — and why the syllabus below starts there.

NVS prospectus JNVST 2027.

The Mental Ability Test is “a non-verbal test”: its questions “are based on figures and diagrams only”. The prospectus divides the 20 questions into five parts of four questions each and gives a worked example of each. Every one of them asks the child to spot a visual rule and apply it — none needs reading beyond the short direction at the start of the part.

Dropped from the old test: odd-man out, figure matching, analogy, punched-hole (folding and unfolding) patterns and space visualisation. Practice books written for 2026 or earlier spend many pages on these; for 2027 that time is better spent on the five types above. Mirror and water images now share one part. The prospectus’s direction and sample describe only a mirror held at a line, but the title names water images too — the reflection of a figure in a horizontal line, as in still water, which turns it upside down — so a child should practise both.

Questions 21 to 40 come from EVS: 15 multiple-choice questions and one passage followed by five questions. NVS describes EVS as interdisciplinary, “integrating basic concepts from Science, Social Science and Environmental Education”, and says its purpose is “to assess basic awareness of the candidates about their surroundings”. The prospectus lists four areas.

The EVS topics are close to what most State Class III–V EVS textbooks cover, which is good news: a child who has read their own EVS books carefully already knows much of it. The areas that need deliberate revision are the fact-heavy lists — States and capitals, national symbols and the “superlatives of India” (longest river, highest peak and so on) — and the passage, which rewards careful reading exactly as the Language test does.

The prospectus heading still says the 20 arithmetic questions are based on “12 topics”, but the 2027 list below it has nine. NVS adds that “emphasis will be more on testing of understanding and application of the concepts”, so expect short word problems rather than bare sums.

The Language test assesses “reading comprehension” only: four passages, each followed by five questions. The sample passage in the prospectus is about forests, and its questions show the range to expect — a fact stated in the passage, the opposite of a word (“preservation”), which word is not a synonym of “wise”, and what follows from the passage. There is no separate grammar or essay section. Children who read short stories and non-fiction every day, and answer a few questions about each one, are preparing for this test directly.

A word on the previous-year paper: NVS has put a 2026 question booklet (English) on the admission portal. Its Arithmetic and Language sections are good practice. Its Mental Ability section follows the old ten-part pattern and has no EVS, so use it for timing only, and skip the question types dropped in 2027.