Topics Removed from the NEET Syllabus (and How Many Questions They Had)
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When you solve old NEET papers, you will find questions on topics that are no longer in the syllabus. That can waste time, or worse, make you study chapters that will not be tested. This page lists the topics that were removed, and shows how many questions each of them had in official NEET papers from 2016 to 2025.
What changed, and when
NMC revised and reduced the NEET (UG) syllabus for NEET 2024. The 2025 and 2026 syllabi are the same as that revised version. To find what was removed, we compared the pre-2024 syllabus in the official NTA Information Bulletin for NEET (UG) 2023 with the official NEET (UG) 2026 syllabus, unit by unit. We list 48 removed topics: 20 in Physics, 14 in Chemistry and 14 in Biology.
The NEET 2027 syllabus has not been released yet. If NMC changes anything, we will update this list.
How many questions did removed topics have?
We tagged all 2,060 questions from 11 official papers (2016 phase 1 and 2, 2017 to 2025). 263 of them test a topic that is now removed:
- Chemistry: 108 questions
- Biology: 116 questions (Botany 73, Zoology 43)
- Physics: 39 questions
Almost all of them come from the older papers. In the nine papers from 2016 to 2023, 252 of 1,680 questions (15%) are on removed topics, between 24 and 32 per paper. In NEET 2024 we flagged 9 questions and in NEET 2025 only 2. These are borderline cases, where a question sits close to a removed sub-point inside a chapter that is still in the syllabus.
The practical meaning: when you practise papers from 2023 or earlier, expect around one in seven questions to be outside your syllabus.
Physics: removed topics
| Removed topic | Questions in 2016–2025 papers |
|---|---|
| Radioactivity, decay law, isotopes/isobars/isotones | 8 |
| Newton's law of cooling, Stefan's law, Wien's law, black body, greenhouse effect | 5 |
| Heat engines and refrigerators | 5 |
| Transistors: action, characteristics, amplifier, oscillator, switch | 5 |
| Carbon resistor colour code | 3 |
| Potentiometer | 3 |
| Resolving power of microscope and telescope | 3 |
| Doppler effect | 2 |
| Earth's magnetism and magnetic elements, permanent magnets, electromagnets | 2 |
| Scattering of light, dispersion | 2 |
| Human eye and defects of vision | 1 |
| Physical world: scope and nature of physical laws | 0 |
| Free, forced and damped oscillations, resonance | 0 |
| Poisson's ratio, elastic energy, Reynolds number | 0 |
| Van de Graaff generator | 0 |
| Cyclotron | 0 |
| Toroid | 0 |
| LC oscillations | 0 |
| Davisson-Germer experiment | 0 |
| Energy bands in solids | 0 |
Radioactivity and the decay law had the most Physics questions (8). The Atoms and Nuclei unit is still in the syllabus; only this part of it was dropped. Transistors (5 questions) are also gone, while logic gates, diodes and the photodiode remain.
Chemistry: removed topics
| Removed topic | Questions in 2016–2025 papers |
|---|---|
| Specific p-block compounds (borax, silicones, NH3, HNO3, H2SO4, oxoacids, interhalogens, noble gas compounds) | 15 |
| s-Block elements | 14 |
| Solid state | 13 |
| States of matter: gases and liquids | 11 |
| Surface chemistry | 11 |
| General principles and processes of isolation of elements (metallurgy) | 9 |
| Polymers | 9 |
| Chemistry in everyday life | 7 |
| Hydrogen | 6 |
| Environmental chemistry | 6 |
| Corrosion, laws of electrolysis | 5 |
| D/L configuration, polysaccharides | 2 |
| Third law of thermodynamics | 0 |
| Cyanides and isocyanides | 0 |
Chemistry lost the most whole units, including s-Block Elements, Solid State, Surface Chemistry, Polymers, Metallurgy, Hydrogen, Environmental Chemistry and Chemistry in Everyday Life. The specific p-block compounds (borax, silicones, NH3, HNO3, H2SO4, oxoacids, interhalogens) had 15 questions; the p-Block unit now covers only general trends of Groups 13 to 18.
Biology: removed topics
| Removed topic | Questions in 2016–2025 papers |
|---|---|
| Environmental issues (pollution, ozone, deforestation, waste) | 23 |
| Digestion and absorption | 19 |
| Transport in plants | 17 |
| Cockroach / earthworm anatomy | 12 |
| Mineral nutrition and nitrogen metabolism | 11 |
| Improvement in food production: plant breeding, tissue culture, SCP, biofortification | 7 |
| Reflex action, sense organs (eye and ear) | 6 |
| Animal husbandry and apiculture | 6 |
| Seed dormancy, vernalisation, photoperiodism | 4 |
| Reproduction in organisms (asexual reproduction) | 3 |
| Habitat and niche, ecological adaptations | 3 |
| Nutrient cycling, ecological succession, ecosystem services | 3 |
| Three domains of life; tools of taxonomy (museums, herbaria, zoos) | 2 |
| Angiosperm classification | 0 |
Environmental Issues had the most questions of any removed topic (23), followed by Digestion and Absorption (19) and Transport in Plants (17). The type animal also changed: the syllabus now names the frog, so cockroach and earthworm anatomy questions are out.
12 of the removed topics had no questions at all in these 11 papers, for example the Van de Graaff generator, the cyclotron and the third law of thermodynamics.
What was added
The revision also added material. In Physics, a new Unit 20 on Experimental Skills. In Chemistry, Unit 13 on Purification and Characterisation of Organic Compounds and Unit 20 on Principles Related to Practical Chemistry, along with named reactions such as Clemmensen, Wolff-Kishner, Cannizzaro and Reimer-Tiemann. In Biology, frog morphology and anatomy, plant families such as Malvaceae and Leguminosae, protein biosynthesis, dengue and chikungunya, and sacred groves.
How to use this when you practise
- Do not drop old papers. About 85% of questions in the 2016–2023 papers are still in syllabus, and they are official exam questions.
- Skip, do not study, removed topics. When you meet a question on a topic in the tables above, mark it as skipped and move on.
- Adjust your score. When you time an old paper, score yourself only on in-syllabus questions so the result is fair.
- Let the tools filter for you. Our topic-wise test builder uses the same tagging, so you can practise current-syllabus questions only. Browse full papers on the NEET previous year papers page and keep your current-syllabus checklist in the syllabus tracker.
Sources: NMC NEET (UG) 2026 syllabus (public notice dated 22 December 2025) and NTA Information Bulletin NEET (UG) 2023, both from neet.nta.nic.in; NMC: nmc.org.in. Question counts are Doubtly's own analysis of 11 official NEET papers.
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