NEET UG Exam Pattern

Every question is multiple choice with four options and one correct or best answer. Biology carries half the paper’s marks, as much as Physics and Chemistry put together.

Because everyone sits the same paper at the same time, there is no normalisation between shifts. Your raw marks out of 720 are your score.

• If more than one option turns out to be correct, +4 goes to everyone who marked any of the correct options.
• If all four options are correct, everyone who attempted the question gets +4.
• If no option is correct, or the question is wrong or dropped, every candidate gets +4, attempted or not.

A wrong answer costs a quarter of what a right one earns. On average, a pure guess among four options is worth +0.25 marks; ruling out one option raises that to about +0.67, and ruling out two to +1.5. Each single guess is still a gamble, so a blank is the safe choice only when you cannot rule anything out.

The paper is offered in 13 languages: English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. You choose one in the application form and cannot change it later.

• English: the booklet is in English only.
• Hindi: a bilingual booklet in English and Hindi.
• Any other language: a booklet in English plus that language. Regional languages are offered only at centres in the matching states, except Urdu, which is offered across India.
• If a translation is unclear, the English version is final.

• Minimum age: 17 years on or before 31 December of the exam year. For NEET (UG) 2026 that meant born on or before 31.12.2009.
• Upper age limit: none.
• Qualification: Class 12 or equivalent with Physics, Chemistry, Biology/Biotechnology and English, including practicals. Students still waiting for Class 12 results can sit the exam, but must have passed by the first round of counselling.
• Indian citizens and OCI cardholders who want to study medicine abroad also need to qualify NEET (UG).

The bulletin lists seven accepted qualifying routes (codes 01 to 07), from Class 12 to a B.Sc. with two of Physics, Chemistry and Biology. The official PDF has the exact wording of each.

Qualifying is not the same as getting a seat. It makes you eligible for counselling, where seats are allotted by All India Rank.

• Higher marks in Biology, then Chemistry, then Physics.
• Then fewer wrong answers relative to right ones: across the whole paper, then in Biology, Chemistry and Physics in turn.
• If a tie still remains, it is broken by a random process overseen by an independent expert committee.