MHT‑CET Physics and Chemistry: State Board textbook or NCERT, and what to read

Summary: For MHT‑CET, the Maharashtra State Board (Balbharati) textbook is the reference, because the CET Cell sets questions on the SCERT syllabus. NCERT covers most of the same concepts and is fine for learning them, but a few chapters and topics exist only in the State Board books. Use NCERT or your coaching material to learn, and the State Board book to confirm coverage and to practise its exercises.

This question comes up in every parents' meeting we hold for Class 11. HSC students already have the State Board books. CBSE students have NCERT. JEE and NEET students are told NCERT is the base. So which one should a CET aspirant read?

The official answer is in the CET Cell's syllabus document for 2026: questions will be based on the syllabus of the State Council of Educational Research and Training, Maharashtra. The State Board textbooks follow that syllabus. That makes them the safest reference for what is in and what is out.

Physics: same ideas, different placement

The concepts in Physics are largely common to both books. The main difference is which year they are taught in. The Maharashtra Class 12 Physics book has 16 chapters, and six of them cover ideas that NCERT places in Class 11:

Since the whole Class 12 State Board syllabus is in MHT‑CET, these topics count as Class 12 for CET purposes. A CBSE student who studied them in Class 11 and never revised them will find a large part of the CET Physics paper feels like old material. They should be revised along with Class 12, not treated as "done".

The other Class 12 chapters (Electrostatics, Current Electricity, Magnetic Fields due to Electric Current, Magnetic Materials, Electromagnetic Induction, AC Circuits, Wave Optics, Dual Nature of Radiation and Matter, Structure of Atoms and Nuclei, Semiconductor Devices) map closely onto NCERT Class 12. Read the State Board chapter once anyway, because its examples and end-of-chapter questions show the framing CET tends to use.

For the Class 11 part of CET Physics, only the chapters named in the syllabus document count: Vectors, Error Analysis, Motion in a Plane, Laws of Motion, Gravitation, Thermal Properties of Matter, Sound, Optics, Electrostatics and Semiconductors.

Chemistry: this is where the books differ more

NCERT's Chemistry books were rationalised a few years ago and several chapters were removed. The Maharashtra State Board books still contain some of them, and so does the CET syllabus. Chapters and topics to read from the State Board book in particular:

• Class 12: Solid State, Elements of Groups 16, 17 and 18, Introduction to Polymer Chemistry, and Green Chemistry and Nanochemistry.
• Class 11 chapters listed for CET: Elements of Group 1 and 2, States of Matter (Gaseous and Liquids), Adsorption and Colloids (Surface Chemistry), and Chemistry in Everyday Life.

These are not difficult chapters. Most of them are direct and fact-based, which makes them some of the quickest marks in the 54-seconds-per-question Physics-Chemistry section. They are lost only by students who never opened them.

For the rest of Chemistry (Solutions, Electrochemistry, Chemical Kinetics, Coordination Compounds, the organic chapters, Biomolecules), NCERT and the State Board cover similar ground. Our chapter notes for Chemistry follow NCERT and work well for these, and our p-Block Elements notes cover groups 13 to 18 for students whose NCERT book no longer has them.

How to read the two books together

Reading every chapter fully in both books is a waste of time for most students. A better routine, chapter by chapter:

1. Learn the chapter from whichever source you are strongest in: NCERT, your coaching module or the State Board book.
2. Skim the State Board chapter with a pencil. Mark every definition, table, graph or derivation that was not in your main source. This usually takes 20 to 30 minutes.
3. Solve the State Board exercise at the end of the chapter, including the multiple choice questions.
4. Do one timed set of 20 to 25 CET-level questions on the chapter.
5. Add the marked points to your revision notes so you do not need to open two books in April.

For Inorganic Chemistry and fact-heavy topics, the exact wording in the State Board book matters more. For Physics numericals and Physical Chemistry, the concept matters more than the book.

Which reference books to add

Beyond the two textbooks, students usually need one question source for practice. For a JEE or NEET student, their regular practice material is enough for concepts. What they need to add is volume of CET-level, time-bound MCQs and past papers. For a CET-only student, a standard MCQ book built on the State Board syllabus, plus previous years' papers, is sufficient. We would avoid collecting four or five guides. Two sources done fully are worth more than five done in parts.

Our previous year papers section lets you attempt papers online with analysis, which is a good way to test whether your reading has covered what CET asks.

A weekly routine during Class 12

Common questions