NEET 2017 Question Paper – Biology Section – Mapping to NCERT Textbooks

Dear Aspirants of NEET 2018, 2019,

NEET 2017 is behind us now. I presume all of you have seen the question paper and most of you would have analysed the same as well.

Until last year (2016), there used to be some 300 students scoring above 600 marks (out of 720). This year (2017) with almost 3000 students scoring above 600 marks, I started wondering about the difficulty level of the exam. Though I am not a Biology student (studied Biology till Class 10th), I wanted to check the Biology section of the question paper.

As all of you know, Biology would have 90 questions and if someone has to cross 600 marks, they need at least 300 marks in this section, after being, very very strong in Physics and Chemistry. 75 questions all correct out of total 90 Biology questions, and leaving 15 questions without answering!!, would fetch the required 300 marks.

I have taken the Code – Y question paper of NEET 2017 for the mapping exercise. {Credit and Thanks to SriChaitanya Institute for this question paper} The same can be accessed for your reference from the following link —> NEET – 2017 : Code Y Question Paper

My first stop to check the difficulty level of the questions was naturally the NCERT Class XI and Class XII Biology textbooks and NCERT Exemplar books. Out of the 90 questions; 76 questions are straightforward mapped to the NCERT textbooks/exemplar content; Some 8 questions would require, an advanced College Biology textbook; 2 questions are basic science questions of IX and X class level; and 4 questions can be traced to older versions (pre-2010) of NCERT textbooks. {The mapping is shown in the tables given at the end of this post}

This year I have noticed that many coaching institutes have done the mapping of all the questions to their course materials and announced that 176 of 180 questions are from their material; 90% of the questions from their material; etc. Some of them took pain to map the questions to a page number in the NCERT textbooks. However, they mapped only 50% of the questions to the NCERT textbooks. Needless to say, why so?

In my mapping exercise, not only did I find 76 questions directly from NCERT textbooks/exemplar, but I also found that most of them were simple and straightforward questions. Also, there were some pages of NCERT textbooks on which you will find 2 questions on the same page! So, if someone has meticulously read the NCERT textbooks; made some good crisp notes; revised over and over again, scoring 300 marks would have been easy. And this year results prove that point.

So Dear Aspirants please ensure that the NCERT Biology text books of classes XI and XII and Exemplar books are your true companion in your pursuit of NEET Examination Success! After reading NCERT textbooks, you should definitely go for higher (college level) books or your coaching institute material.

{Please excuse if I have made an error inadvertently (not being a Biology student). In case, you find any, please let me know the correct source or page number}

Best Wishes to all of you

VRN Rao