NISM Series V-B is the shortest of the mutual fund certifications: 50 questions, a 50% pass mark, no negative marking, and two full hours to do it in. Ten days at an hour or two a day is realistic for most people, and comfortably so for anyone who has worked in a bank or post office.
The plan below follows the official chapter weights. One chapter is worth a fifth of the paper; it gets two days.
Days 1–2: Investor Services (20%)
Ten of the fifty questions. KYC and the application form, who may invest, third-party payment exceptions, cut-off times and applicable NAV, SIP/SWP/STP, account statements and the CAS, nomination, transmission.
The facts that recur: the three third-party cheque exceptions (minor up to Rs 50,000, employer payroll, custodian for FPIs); allotment within five business days of NFO closure and refund within five if rejected; the half-yearly CAS for folios with no transactions.
Practise the chapter — the largest set in the course. Full chapter guide.
Day 3: Concept and Role of a Mutual Fund (12%)
What a fund is, open- against close-ended, the categories, advantages and limitations. Two facts to fix: close-ended schemes have no re-open date, and investor money sits in the scheme's own bank account.
Day 4: Scheme Related Information (12%)
SID for scheme details, SAI for statutory information about the fund house, KIM as the summary with the application form, the monthly factsheet for portfolio and commentary. Questions ask which document holds what.
Day 5: Performance of Mutual Funds (12%)
NAV, absolute against annualised return, CAGR, daily mark-to-market, benchmarks. Do the CAGR arithmetic by hand three or four times — (end ÷ start)^(1/years) − 1 — until it is automatic.
Day 6: Distribution and the new cadre (10% + 6%)
ARN and EUIN, KYD (index finger, right hand, at a CAMS PoS), trail commission with no time cap, distributor conduct. Then the chapter unique to V-B: who the new cadre is and the five scheme types they may sell, with the "beat or match the benchmark in each of the last three years" condition. Full chapter guide.
Day 7: Structure and regulation (8% + 8%)
Sponsor, trustees, AMC, custodian, RTA — the AMC runs operations, the trustees supervise. Then SEBI and AMFI, and the transparent process (disclosure plus a no-load exit window) for changing a scheme's fundamental attributes.
Day 8: Investment Landscape and Taxation (6% + 6%)
Savings against investment, inflation, compounding, equity only for a long horizon. Then holding periods — more than 12 months for equity funds — capital gains rates, IDCW, and the three-year ELSS lock-in on each instalment.
Days 9–10: full papers
Stop studying chapter by chapter. Sit 50-question timed papers in one go, then review every wrong answer and classify it: a fact you did not know, a fact you misread, or a rushed guess. In V-B the second category is large, because so many items are True/False and turn on one word.
Exam-day rules
- Answer all 50. No negative marking; a blank is a guaranteed zero.
- Use the two hours. You have 2 minutes 24 seconds a question — read every option.
- Read True/False items twice. Only, cannot, maximum, within — the word that flips the answer is usually small.
Quick recap
- Days 1–2: Investor Services. Days 3–5: the three 12% chapters. Days 6–8: the rest. Days 9–10: timed papers.
- Pass mark: 25 of 50. The top four chapters alone are worth 28.