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Friday, 16 October

NEET UG 2026 · Re-exam

NEET 2026 paper, question by question

All 179 questions from the NEET UG 2026 paper, tagged to chapter, topic and idea. How hard it was, what it asked, what was new and what came back.

Questions
179
of 180; 1 dropped by NTA
Chapters asked
73
4 usual chapters skipped
Easy / hard
45% / 6%
share of the paper
Need a calculation
25%
Physics alone: 55%
New ideas
59%
of questions tested an idea not asked before
Use a figure
18%
21 in Physics, 12 in Chemistry
From Class 12
55%
of the questions, all subjects
Same idea as last year
7.8%
14 questions

Key findings · NEET 2026

  1. 1

    45% of questions were easy, 9 points below the ten-year average of 54%.

  2. 2

    About 45 questions (25%) needed a calculation, against 21% on average; Physics alone was 55% calculation.

  3. 3

    Cell: The Unit of Life got the biggest boost: 7 questions against a usual 3.5, followed by Coordination Compounds (6 vs 2.6).

  4. 4

    Biology tilted to Class 12: 51 of 90 questions (Class 12 share the highest in ten years).

  5. 5

    59% of tagged questions tested an idea no earlier paper had asked, yet 99% came from a topic seen before.

Subjects

How the 2026 paper split

Questions per subject, the Class 11 and Class 12 balance, and how hard each part was.

Physics 2026

25% of the paper

44questions · 23 chapters

Class 11 and 12

2024
  • Class 11
  • Class 12

Difficulty

1030
  • Easy
  • Medium
  • Hard
New ideas
26 (59%)
Use a figure
21
Calculation
55%
Figure-based
32%
Concept
5%

Physics 2026, question by questionTen years of Physics

Chemistry 2026

25% of the paper

45questions · 20 chapters

Class 11 and 12

2124
  • Class 11
  • Class 12

Difficulty

1228
  • Easy
  • Medium
  • Hard
New ideas
31 (69%)
Use a figure
12
Calculation
31%
Recall
24%
Application
13%

Chemistry 2026, question by questionTen years of Chemistry

Biology 2026

50% of the paper

90questions · 30 chapters

Botany and Zoology

5040
  • Botany
  • Zoology

Class 11 and 12

3951
  • Class 11
  • Class 12

Difficulty

5830
  • Easy
  • Medium
  • Hard
New ideas
49 (54%)
Use a figure
0
Recall
58%
Match the lists
10%
Concept
9%

Biology 2026, question by questionTen years of Biology

Compared

Versus 2025 and the ten-year average

Each measure for this paper, next to the year before and the average of all ten papers. Changes are in percentage points.

  • Questions in the paper179
    2025: 180 -1Avg: 188 -9
  • Chapters asked73
    2025: 73 0Avg: 84 -11
  • Easy questions44.7%
    2025: 43.3% +1.4Avg: 54.0% -9.3
  • Hard questions6.1%
    2025: 7.2% -1.1Avg: 2.7% +3.4
  • Need a calculation25.1%
    2025: 27.2% -2.1Avg: 21.2% +3.9
  • Straight recall45.3%
    2025: 36.7% +8.6Avg: 46.3% -1.0
  • Use a figure18.4%
    2025: 13.3% +5.1Avg: 10.5% +7.9
  • Statements, assertion–reason, match17.9%
    2025: 19.4% -1.5Avg: 14.5% +3.4
  • Test a new idea59.2%
    2025: 62.2% -3.0Avg: 73.9% -14.7
  • Same idea as the year before7.8%
    2025: 10.6% -2.8Avg: 6.8% +1.0
  • From Class 1255.3%
    2025: 51.7% +3.6Avg: 51.9% +3.4
  • Physics: easy22.7%
    2025: 24.4% -1.7Avg: 47.0% -24.3
  • Chemistry: easy26.7%
    2025: 35.6% -8.9Avg: 46.6% -20.0
  • Biology: easy64.4%
    2025: 56.7% +7.8Avg: 61.0% +3.4

Repetition

What came back, and what was new

Almost every question sits in a chapter NEET has asked before, and most in a known topic. The exact idea is a different story: most are new.

Questions whose … had appeared before

ANY PAPER 2017–2025
  • Chapter100%
  • Topic99%
  • Exact idea41%
  • Exact idea, in 20258%

Topic and idea shares count only the questions we could tag to a topic. The ten-paper window grows each year, so early years look newer than they are.

Questions testing a new idea, by year

Share of each paper whose idea had never been asked in an earlier paper.

Same idea as the year before

Share of each paper that repeated an idea from the previous paper.

Chapters

Which chapters got more, and which got less

Questions a chapter had in 2026 minus its usual: its ten-year average per 180 questions.

More than usual

Less than usual, or skipped

All 73 chapters asked

Biology · 30

Topics

Busiest topics in 2026

Question format

SHARE OF 2026
  • One-line MCQ · 84 Q47%
  • Numerical · 35 Q20%
  • Figure-based · 17 Q9%
  • Match the lists · 12 Q7%
  • Two statements · 12 Q7%
  • Other · 11 Q6%
  • Assertion–reason · 8 Q4%

What the question tests

SHARE OF 2026
  • Recall · 81 Q45%
  • Concept · 30 Q17%
  • Calculation · 27 Q15%
  • Multi-step · 21 Q12%
  • Application · 14 Q8%
  • Data or graph · 6 Q3%

Drill down

What 2026 asked, and its history

Every chapter the 2026 paper asked, with all its topics and ideas. Counts and squares cover all ten papers; rows 2026 did not ask are faded, and questions from other years link to their own paper.

  • Open90 this paper940 · 50%909090901001001001009090
  • Open45 this paper469 · 25%45454545504950504545
  • Open44 this paper466 · 25%43454545505049504544

Squares are the ten papers, 2017 to 2026; darker means more questions. Share is of the level above.

Every question

All 179 questions of NEET 2026

The opening words of each question as printed, with its chapter, topic and how hard it was. “New idea” means no earlier paper had tested it.

Subject
Difficulty
Idea
179 of 179 questions

Physics44 questions

10 easy30 medium4 hard

Chemistry45 questions

12 easy28 medium5 hard

Botany50 questions

30 easy18 medium2 hard

Zoology40 questions

28 easy12 medium0 hard

Dropped from the official key and left out of every count: Q26.

Questions from the official NEET UG papers published by NTA (CBSE before 2019). Topic and idea tags, difficulty and notes are Lumi’s.

Other papers

Every NEET paper, 2017 to 2026

How is difficulty decided?
Each question is rated easy, medium or hard by how many steps and how much recall it needs. It is Lumi’s rating, not NTA’s, and it is the same scale for every year.
What is a “new idea”?
Inside each topic we tag the exact idea a question tests. A new idea is one that no earlier paper in our data had tested. The first year, 2017, has nothing to compare with.
Does this tell me what will come next year?
No. It shows weightage and patterns from past papers. Chapters and topics repeat; exact questions rarely do.

All NEET chapters