NISM Series IX Previous Year Papers
No official past paper exists for Series IX. The published format and curriculum give you what one would have.
NISM does not publish previous year papers for Series IX, the Merchant Banking Certification Examination. It publishes none for any series. The exam runs on demand all year at test centres, and each candidate gets a paper drawn from NISM's question bank. There is no annual paper to release, so a file titled as the 2024 or 2025 Series IX paper is not an official document.
That is less of a loss than it sounds. NISM states the paper's structure, publishes the 8-chapter curriculum, and gives the workbook away free. This page lays that out and shows how to practise against it.
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About the PDFs that claim to be real papers
Files sold or shared as leaked or memory-based Series IX papers are recollections at best. They carry no answer key you can trust, and often follow an older curriculum. Do not pay for one, and do not use one as your only check on readiness.
What the Series IX paper looks like
Every fact below is from NISM's exam page. A past paper would add only the wording of individual questions, which changes anyway.
| Item | Series IX |
|---|---|
| Questions | 100 multiple-choice questions, 1 mark each |
| Total marks | 100 |
| Duration | 2 hours |
| Pass mark | 60 out of 100 (60%) |
| Wrong answer | 0.25 mark deducted (25% of the question's marks) |
| Where | NISM test centre, slot of your choice, no fixed exam date |
| Syllabus | 8 chapters on NISM's curriculum page |
The question each chapter produces
NISM publishes no chapter weightage, so ignore any site that prints one. What you can predict is the shape of the question. Treat the sub-topics A to H under each chapter on the curriculum page as a list of things that can be asked.
- check_circleChapter 1, Introduction to Capital Market: identify a product, participant or regulator from a one-line description.
- check_circleChapter 2, Introduction to Merchant Banking: what a merchant banker does, how the role developed in India, which regulation governs it.
- check_circleChapter 3, Registration, Code of Conduct and General Obligations: a condition of SEBI registration, a clause of the code of conduct, how a complaint moves through SCORES.
- check_circleChapter 4, Issue Management: Important Terms: pure vocabulary. An offer-document term is described and you pick its name, or the reverse.
- check_circleChapter 5, Issue Management: Process and Underwriting: process order and conditions. What must happen before the issue opens, when underwriting applies, the minimum subscription rule, the post-issue reports.
- check_circleChapter 6, General Obligations and Due Diligence: which obligation applies at which stage, and the specific rules for preferential issues, qualified institutional placements, rights issues and Indian Depository Receipts.
- check_circleChapter 7, Mergers, Acquisitions and Takeovers: which event triggers an open offer under the SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011, and the merchant banker's duties and timeline in one.
- check_circleChapter 8, Disinvestment, Buyback and the rest: the merchant banker's role in each of eight activities, from buyback and delisting to SME issues and AIFs. Each asks what the merchant banker must do or certify.
Free account, this exam preselected.
How NISM Series IX tests this material
The paper is a regulation exam. Most questions test a precise condition, threshold, timeline or responsibility from the SEBI regulations under chapters 3 to 8. Expect wrong options that are near-neighbours: the right figure, the figure from a related rule, an older figure, and a plausible invention.
The second trap is the role question: is the issuer, the merchant banker, the registrar or the exchange responsible? Candidates who read the workbook as a story rather than a list of duties mix these up. While revising chapters 5 to 8, mark every sentence that says what the merchant banker shall do; those sentences are the paper.
The third trap is the negative mark. At 0.25 off per wrong answer, four failed guesses cost a full question. Guess only after ruling out at least one option. The exam-pattern page works the arithmetic in full.
How to practise without past papers
A past paper would give you the format, the question style and a score. You can build all three.
- 1
Turn the curriculum into a question list
Write one question for every sub-topic under every chapter on NISM's curriculum page. Chapter 8 alone gives you eight.
- 2
Use the workbook's own questions first
NISM's FAQ points candidates to the chapter-end sample questions and worked examples in the workbook as the official practice. Do every one before touching third-party sets.
- 3
Write your own near-neighbour options
For every number or deadline in the workbook, note the figure next to it in the same regulation. Those pairs are the options the paper uses. If you cannot say why one is right, you do not know the rule yet.
- 4
Sit timed sets scored at the real penalty
A practice set is useful only if it is 100 questions in 2 hours, scored 1 mark right and 0.25 off wrong. Treat 60 marks as the line and aim for a margin above it.
- 5
Fix the chapter, not the question
Group your wrong answers by chapter. Two or more misses in one chapter means re-reading that chapter and the regulation behind it, not memorising the questions you missed.
Checking a third-party question set
Before using any set, compare its stated format with the table above. A set built for a different question count, duration or penalty was written for another exam or an older pattern. The study-material page lists what to read alongside the workbook.
FAQs
Where can I download NISM Series IX previous year question papers?expand_more
Nowhere official. NISM does not release past papers or answer keys for any certification, including Series IX. Files offered online under that name are recollections or third-party sets, not NISM documents.
Does NISM repeat questions in the Merchant Banking exam?expand_more
Each paper is drawn from a question bank, so two candidates on the same day can see different questions. Topics repeat because the curriculum is fixed; wording does not.
What type of questions come in NISM Series IX?expand_more
100 multiple-choice questions of 1 mark each; NISM lists no case-based section for this series. Most test a definition, a regulatory condition, a timeline or a merchant banker's duty from the 8 curriculum chapters.
Can I take the NISM Series IX exam from home?expand_more
No. NISM lists Series IX as a test-centre exam, not a remote-proctored one. You book a slot at an NISM test centre through the certification portal; there is no fixed exam date.
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