AMTI has never published a fixed passing score for NMTC Stage 1 — but it does publish, in its own official results documents, exactly how many students registered and how many were selected to advance at each level, every year. Two years of that real data (the 56th NMTC, 2024, and the 57th NMTC, 2025) show a strikingly consistent pattern worth understanding directly, rather than relying on guesswork.
NMTC 2024 (56th edition) — registered vs. selected for Stage 2
| Level | Registered | Selected for Stage 2 | % Advancing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | 11,677 | 1,216 | 10.4% |
| Sub-Junior | 16,154 | 1,760 | 10.9% |
| Junior | 22,149 | 2,345 | 10.6% |
| Inter | 6,464 | 683 | 10.6% |
| Senior | 151 | 151 | 100% |
NMTC 2025 (57th edition) — registered vs. selected for Stage 2
| Level | Registered | Selected for Stage 2 | % Advancing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | 15,391 | 1,529 | 9.9% |
| Sub-Junior | 22,463 | 2,310 | 10.3% |
| Junior | 33,866 | 3,460 | 10.2% |
| Inter | 11,285 | 1,129 | 10.0% |
| Senior | 216 | 216 | 100% |
What two years of real numbers actually show
- The advancement rate is remarkably stable at almost exactly 10% across every level in both years — Primary, Sub-Junior, Junior, and Inter all land within a tight 9.9%-10.9% band, confirming NMTC's own stated 'top 10%' rule with real published figures.
- Senior level (degree students) shows 100% advancement in both years — every registrant moved to Stage 2, most likely reflecting genuinely low registration numbers at that level rather than an easier bar.
- Registration volume grew sharply year over year — Junior level alone went from 22,149 registrants in 2024 to 33,866 in 2025, a 53% jump — while the roughly-10% advancement rate held steady, which means the absolute competition for each Stage 2 seat intensified even though the percentage rule didn't change.
- Because the rate is percentage-based, a growing aspirant pool doesn't loosen the bar — it raises the raw score likely needed to land in that same top 10%, purely from more competition at the same cutoff percentile.
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What this means for how to prepare
Since the qualifying rate is a fixed roughly-10% slice regardless of the specific score, the right preparation target isn't a remembered percentage from an old paper — it's genuine, timed, level-matched practice that builds real relative strength against a growing, increasingly competitive pool. A student aiming for "last year's cutoff percentage" on this year's paper is aiming at a moving target, since the pool itself has grown.
What this looks like in practice
BuzzyBrains Academy's NMTC preparation tracks a student's standing against a realistic, current-size peer group rather than an old cutoff percentage, precisely because the registrant pool is growing fast enough each year that a stale benchmark understates how competitive the real top-10% bar has become.
If you want a genuine read on where your child stands against this year's likely pool size, the NMTC Coaching program runs level-matched mock papers with percentile feedback built around exactly this trend.
