NISM Series VIII needs 60 marks out of 100, with 0.25 marks deducted for every wrong answer. It is very passable in three weeks, but not by reading alone. Two-fifths of the marks sit in two calculation-heavy chapters, Forwards and Futures and Options, and the exam rewards people who have practised the calculations, not just read about them.
This plan spreads the 10 chapters over 17 days in proportion to their marks, then keeps four days for mocks and fixing weak spots. Plan on about 1.5 to 2 hours a day.
For the exam pattern and fee, see our NISM VIII Complete Guide.
#The 21-day plan
| Day | What | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Ch 1 Basics of Derivatives | 10 |
| 3 | Ch 2 Understanding the Index | 5 |
| 4–7 | Ch 3 Forwards and Futures | 20 |
| 8–11 | Ch 4 Options | 20 |
| 12–13 | Ch 5 Strategies using Equity Futures and Equity Options | 10 |
| 14 | Ch 6 Trading Mechanism | 10 |
| 15 | Ch 7 Clearing, Settlement and Risk Management | 10 |
| 16 | Ch 8 Legal and Regulatory Environment · Ch 9 Accounting and Taxation | 5 + 5 |
| 17 | Ch 10 Sales Practices and Investor Protection Services; revise Ch 6 and 7 | 5 |
| 18 | Full mock 1: 100 questions in 2 hours, timed. Review every wrong and skipped answer. | — |
| 19 | Redo the calculations you got wrong: cost of carry, payoffs, MTM, margins | — |
| 20 | Full mock 2, same conditions | — |
| 21 | Light revision of formulas and rules. Check your test centre and ID. | — |
#Days 4–7: Forwards and Futures (20 marks)
Start by being completely clear on the difference between forwards and futures. Students mix them up more than anything else in this chapter. Then move to the calculations: contract value, basis, cost of carry and futures fair price, margins and mark-to-market.
Practise cost of carry until it's automatic. The common mistake is putting the brackets in the wrong place when calculating a futures fair value. Do every practice question twice: once by hand or calculator, and once in a spreadsheet (Excel or LibreOffice, whichever you have in the test center), because the test centre workstations have one of the two. One method gives you the answer; the other cross-checks it. The formulas, with a worked bracket example, are in our NISM VIII formula and payoff sheet.
#Days 8–11: Options (20 marks)
Long call, short call, long put and short put are counter-intuitive. In everyday language, "buy" means you want the price to rise. But buying a put means you profit when the price falls, and selling a call means you take on an obligation in exchange for the premium. Before you touch payoff calculations, be able to say, for each of the four positions, who pays the premium, who has the right, who has the obligation, and which direction of price move helps.
Then practise payoffs and break-even points until you can draw all four diagrams from memory.
#Days 14–15: Don't neglect Clearing and Settlement
Many candidates give Trading Mechanism and Clearing, Settlement and Risk Management a quick read and move on. Together they carry 20 marks, the same as Options, and most of it is rules and processes rather than calculations: how mark-to-market works, how settlement prices are set, and the types of margin. These are some of the most reliable marks in the paper.
#Calculation traps that cost marks
From my classes, these are the mistakes I see most:
- Missing the number of lots. A question says "Mr X sold two lots of call options" and the student calculates for one lot. Sometimes the number of lots is written in words, which makes it even easier to miss. Underline the quantity before you calculate.
- Missing "sold". The question stem is long, the word "sold" appears once at the start, and the student calculates as if it were a purchase. The answer options include both signs (a profit and a loss of the same amount), so the wrong answer looks right. Before calculating, write down: call or put? Bought or sold? How many lots?
- Brackets in cost of carry. Covered above. Cross-check with the spreadsheet.
#Exam-day tactics
- Answer every question. With 0.25-mark negative marking, a blind guess on a four-option question still averages +0.06 marks, a three-option question +0.17, and a True/False question +0.375. Eliminate what you can, then answer.
- Two passes. Answer the quick conceptual questions first and mark the long calculations for review. Come back to them with the time you've saved.
- Read the last line twice, and watch for NOT, FALSE and similar words.
This is an average over many guesses, not a guarantee for one question. Also, it applies to a genuinely random choice among the remaining options; if your “eliminated” options are actually plausible and your final pick is biased toward an attractive wrong answer, the real expected value can be lower than these figures suggest.
#Short on time? The 14-day version
Some candidates sit for VIII under severe time constraints because a job offer depends on it. If you have only two weeks: Ch 1 and 2 in two days, three days each for Ch 3 and Ch 4, one day each for Ch 5, 6 and 7, one day for Ch 8–10, then at least one full mock and one day to fix what it shows. That's 14 days. Don't skip the mock: it is where you find the lot-size and sign mistakes before the exam does.
