India · National Testing Agency for ICAR · phd
LAN-based CBT, 2 hours, 120 MCQs, 480 marks, +4 / -1. 2026 exam on 4 July 2026. 80 subjects.
Run by NTA since 2019. The syllabus PDF numbers these subjects 65/66/67; the 2026 bulletin places them in core groups 17 and 18. 2,278 all-India-quota seats in 2025-26. Earlier formats and any 2024 regrouping are not verified. Syllabus: https://icar.org.in/sites/default/files/Circulars/Syllabus%20AICE%20JRF_SRF%20%28PhD%29.pdf
Official source: https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s388a839f2f6f1427879fc33ee4acf4f66/uploads/2026/05/202605091119545189.pdf
Original questions written to this exam's published syllabus and pattern. Not past papers.
1. A disease outbreak forces a milk union to close collection routes suddenly, and the managing director spends two days rearranging supplies and calming members. In Mintzberg's scheme this is chiefly which role?
C. Disturbance handler, one of the decisional roles
Mintzberg's decisional roles are entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator. Responding to an unexpected crisis is the disturbance-handler role. Monitor is about scanning information, not acting on a crisis.
Principles of Management & Organisational Behaviour · Nature and scope of management
2. A feed mill's total revenue is TR = 120Q - 2Q^2 and total cost is TC = 300 + 24Q + Q^2, with Q in tonnes. What output maximises profit?
B. 16
MR = 120 - 4Q and MC = 24 + 2Q. Setting MR = MC: 96 = 6Q, so Q = 16; the second-order condition holds because MC rises while MR falls. Q = 30 maximises revenue (MR = 0), not profit. Q = 24 comes from setting MR equal to 24 and forgetting the 2Q term in MC. Q = 48 sets price (120 - 2Q) equal to 24.
Managerial (Applied Agribusiness) Economics · Objective of the firm and mathematical tools
3. Along a concave production possibility frontier, a competitive economy with no distortions produces where
A. the marginal rate of transformation equals the ratio of output prices
Profit maximisation by competitive producers gives MC(X)/MC(Y) = Px/Py, and MRT = MC(X)/MC(Y), so production is where the frontier's slope equals the price ratio. There is no reason for MRT to equal one or for average costs to be equal.
Microeconomic Theory & Applications · Scarcity and the production possibility frontier
4. Under the UN System of National Accounts (2008), how is the growth during the year of a newly planted fruit orchard that has not yet borne fruit recorded?
C. As gross fixed capital formation, being own-account work in progress on a cultivated asset
Orchards, plantations and breeding livestock are cultivated biological resources that yield repeated output, so the SNA treats them as fixed assets and their growth as own-account fixed capital formation. It is not intermediate consumption (it is not used up in the year's production), and waiting for sale would violate the rule that output is recorded as it is produced. Land improvement is also capital formation, but orchard growth is not merely a change in land value.
Macroeconomics & Policy · National income concepts and measurement
5. Valuing closing stock of fertiliser at the lower of cost and net realisable value is an application of which convention?
A. Conservatism (prudence)
Conservatism provides for probable losses but does not anticipate gains, so stock is written down when its realisable value falls below cost. Consistency only requires the same method each year; it does not choose the lower figure.
Financial & Managerial Accounting · Accounting concepts and conventions
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