NISM Series V-D Study Material: What to Use
The official NISM workbook, third-party notes and mock tests, and what each is genuinely good for.
Series V-D is a long exam: 150 questions in 180 minutes, drawn from a 22-chapter workbook spanning mutual fund distribution, equity derivatives and interest rate derivatives. The official NISM workbook covers the full examinable scope on its own, and being a newly launched certification (22 July 2026), there's far less third-party material written specifically for it than for older NISM series.
That makes mock practice more valuable here, not less, especially given how calculation-heavy this paper is. A timed mock is the most reliable way to check whether you can actually work through futures and options pricing, yield to maturity and duration calculations fast enough, not just recognise the formulas on a page.
The material landscape
What each source is genuinely good for:
- The official NISM workbook: start here
- Available via the NISM certifications portal once you register. It is the examinable scope: if something is not in the workbook, it is not on the paper.
- Mock tests
- The highest-value addition for a paper this calculation-heavy. 180 minutes for 150 questions leaves little room to work through unfamiliar arithmetic on exam day. A timed mock is what tells you whether the pricing, YTM and duration calculations are actually fast enough under pressure.
- Third-party notes and summaries
- Thinner for V-D than for the older, higher-volume NISM series, simply because it has been live for a matter of weeks. Treat any third-party summary as a supplement to the workbook, not a substitute for it.
Use the current workbook edition
As a newly launched certification, V-D's workbook is more likely to be revised as NISM refines the syllabus in its early cycles. Download the current edition from the portal after you register rather than relying on a copy someone shared.
Free account, this exam preselected.
What to skip
Common purchases that do not move the needle for this exam:
- check_circleQuestion banks with no worked calculations: a wrong pricing or YTM answer you can't diagnose teaches nothing
- check_circleAnything marketed as "guaranteed questions" or a leaked paper
- check_circleSeries XIII material on its own, since V-D drops currency derivatives and adds mutual fund distribution: the syllabi only partly overlap