The NEET syllabus after the NMC revision: what changed and what it means for you

Summary: The NMC trimmed NEET to match the rationalised NCERT books, removing chapters such as Solid State, Surface Chemistry, Transport in Plants and Digestion and Absorption. A few topics stayed that the current NCERT no longer teaches, the biggest being p-block elements and parts of semiconductor electronics, and Physics and Chemistry each gained a practical-skills unit. The same syllabus was notified for the 2026 exam.

Who sets the NEET syllabus

NTA conducts NEET, but the syllabus comes from the National Medical Commission, through its Undergraduate Medical Education Board. Before 2024 the syllabus had not changed in years, while NCERT had cut its Class 11 and 12 books heavily in 2022 and 2023. Students were left studying chapters that no longer existed in their school textbooks.

The NMC released a revised syllabus in late 2023 for the 2024 exam. It was kept for 2025, and the NMC's notice for the 2026 exam again made no changes. That gives you a stable list to plan against, though you should still read the notice for your own year on nmc.org.in before you finalise your chapter list.

Chapters that went out

Most removals follow the NCERT cuts. If a chapter vanished from your NCERT book, it has almost certainly left NEET too.

Many older question banks and "complete NEET" books printed before 2024 still carry these chapters. Before you buy or borrow a book, open its contents page and strike out the removed chapters in pencil, so you do not spend a week on Solid State by habit.

Topics that stayed although NCERT dropped them

This is where students get caught. The NMC did not follow NCERT line for line, and a few topics remain in NEET even though your current textbook does not teach them.

p-Block elements (groups 13 to 18)

The rationalised NCERT removed the p-block chapters from both Class 11 and Class 12, but the NEET syllabus still lists p-block elements, groups 13 to 18. This is a large, fact-heavy area: trends across each group, anomalous behaviour of the first member, oxoacids, interhalogens and noble gas compounds. You need a source for it. An older NCERT edition works, or you can use our p-block notes, which follow the NEET syllabus.

Experimental Skills in Physics

The NEET Physics syllabus now has 20 units, and the last is Experimental Skills. It asks you to be familiar with standard school experiments: the vernier calliper and screw gauge (including least count and zero error), simple pendulum, Young's modulus, surface tension, viscosity, speed of sound with a resonance tube, specific heat, resistivity, Ohm's law, the galvanometer, focal lengths of mirrors and lenses, the prism, and the p-n junction and Zener diode characteristics. Questions from here are usually short. They reward students who did their Class 11 and 12 practicals properly and understood what they were measuring.

Parts of Semiconductor Electronics

The rationalised NCERT shortened its semiconductor chapter, but the NEET syllabus still includes the Zener diode as a voltage regulator, the LED, photodiode and solar cell, and the basic logic gates (OR, AND, NOT, NAND and NOR). Transistors are not in the NEET syllabus. Study these sections from an older NCERT edition.

Principles related to practical chemistry

Chemistry gained a practical unit of its own. It covers detection of elements and functional groups in organic compounds, salt analysis for common cations and anions, preparation of compounds such as Mohr's salt, potash alum, acetanilide and iodoform, titrations (oxalic acid and Mohr's salt against KMnO₄), and experiments on enthalpy, lyophilic and lyophobic sols, and the kinetics of iodide with hydrogen peroxide. Notice that colloids come back through this door even though Surface Chemistry was removed as a chapter.

Rule of thumb: the NMC document decides what is in the syllabus, and NCERT decides the depth. Where the two disagree, study the topic to roughly the depth an older NCERT edition gave it.

What did not change

The core of NEET is the same. Human physiology, genetics, biotechnology, ecology, plant physiology, cell biology, mechanics, electrostatics, optics, modern physics, physical chemistry, organic chemistry, d- and f-block, and coordination compounds are all there. The paper still tests NCERT closely, especially in Biology, and the removal of a few chapters did not make the exam easier. With a smaller syllabus, examiners go deeper into each remaining line.

How to adjust your plan

Take your NCERT table of contents, the NMC syllabus PDF, and one afternoon. Then work through this checklist:

1. Mark every chapter in your NCERT books as "in NEET" or "not in NEET", subject by subject.
2. List the extra topics that NEET has and NCERT does not (p-block, the special diodes and logic gates, the two practical units, and any line in the NMC document you cannot find in your book).
3. Choose one source for each extra topic and write it on the list, so you are not searching during revision.
4. Cross out the removed chapters in every question bank you own.
5. When you attempt previous year papers from before 2024, skip questions from removed chapters and do not count them in your score.
6. Put the practical units into your weekly plan in Class 12, a little each week, rather than leaving them for the last month.

Using older previous year papers

Papers from 2023 and earlier are still worth solving. Most of their questions come from chapters that remain in the syllabus, and they show you how NEET frames a question. Just skip anything from a removed chapter. Papers from 2021 to 2024 also had the optional Section B, which no longer exists, so for timing practice use the 2025 and 2026 papers, which match the current 180-question format. Our previous year papers section lets you attempt them online, and the free daily NCERT tests follow the current syllabus.

For how the paper is structured and marked, see NEET UG exam pattern and marking scheme.

Common questions