CSIR NET Syllabus by Subject: Official PDFs, Part A/B/C Marks, Units

The official syllabus PDFs, one by one

Open the syllabus page on CSIR-HRDG and each subject has its own page and file. The table lists them with the number of pages and the structure we found by reading each PDF.

Marks, questions and negative marking for every part

The June 2026 bulletin (chapter 3.2) gives each subject a scheme of three parts. The table reads: questions printed, the maximum you may attempt (only the first that many are evaluated), marks for a correct answer and the penalty. The last column is our sum of attempts times marks for the three parts, which equals 200 in every subject.

Part A is common to all subjects and "shall contain questions pertaining to General Aptitude with emphasis on logical reasoning, graphical analysis, analytical and numerical ability, quantitative comparison, series formation, puzzles etc.", in the bulletin's words. Part B holds "subject-related conventional multiple-choice questions, generally covering the topics given in the syllabus". Part C holds "higher order questions" of an analytical nature. Our analysis of what Part A actually asked is in the Part A guide of this series.

Chemical Sciences

The Chemical Sciences PDF has three pages and four blocks: Inorganic Chemistry with 12 numbered topics (from chemical periodicity to nuclear chemistry), Physical Chemistry with 14 (from basic quantum mechanics to data analysis), Organic Chemistry with 13 (from IUPAC nomenclature to structure determination by spectroscopy) and five interdisciplinary topics (nanoscience, catalysis and green chemistry, medicinal chemistry, supramolecular chemistry, environmental chemistry). The scheme page says the pattern is the revised one from June 2017: 60 questions in Part C, of which 25 are attempted at 4 marks each.

Earth, Atmospheric, Ocean and Planetary Sciences

This is the longest of the older PDFs (nine pages) and the only one with an explicit split. "Paper I (Part B)" has five sections: the Earth and the solar system; Earth materials, surface features and processes; the interior of the Earth, deformation and tectonics; oceans and atmosphere; and environmental Earth sciences. "Paper I (Part C)" runs through five areas: Geology, Physical Geography, Geophysics, Meteorology and Ocean Sciences. Part C of this subject carries a heavier penalty: the bulletin gives 1.32 marks off for a wrong answer, "negative marking for part C is @ 33%". It had the highest UR JRF cut-off of the five subjects in June 2025, December 2025 and June 2026. It was not the highest in June 2024 or December 2024 (Life Sciences printed a percentile in those cycles and in several before, so older comparisons are not like for like); the cut-off guide in this series has every cycle.

Life Sciences, and the merger with Biotechnology

Read the table immediately above as two lists placed side by side by number, not as a mapping of equal topics. In particular, old unit 11 Evolution and Behavior does not turn into new unit 11 Bioinformatics. Units 1 to 8 broadly carry over, but unit 1 is renamed and subtopics can change. The later units are reorganised; three additional stand-alone headings cover bioinformatics, biochemical engineering and advances in biotechnology. Some of their concepts existed under older Applied Biology or Methods headings, while others need fresh study. The June 2026 marks table above is historical. CSIR has not supplied a verified December 2026 pattern in the sources used here.

Life Sciences 2026: a real 13-to-14-unit crosswalk

A number-for-number comparison is a common revision trap. For example, moving a notebook labelled “Evolution and Behavior” into a folder called “Bioinformatics” because both carry the number 11 would hide both the evolution work you still need and the computational work you have not done. The crosswalk below instead follows concepts across the two official PDFs. It is our reading of the headings and subheadings, so use the PDFs for the complete examinable scope.

The revised title “Evolution and Diversity of Life Forms” combines material that was split between the old Diversity and Evolution units. Behaviour is now named in “Ecology and Behavioural Biology.” Methods still has a familiar core, but the revised unit also names single-cell omics, newer structural methods, statistical ideas and IPR, biosafety and bioethics. The word “same” at unit level never means every subtopic is identical. Audit your actual notes subheading by subheading before discarding or reusing them.

Fourteen units: what to study and one way to practise each

The PDF supplies a syllabus, not a rank order or chapter-wise marks. This table gives its exact revised unit numbering, a short sample of its subtopics and one original practice task per unit. The tasks are ours; they are not copied previous questions, and no row claims a future question count. Keep the official PDF open for the full list, especially when a short phrase in this table covers a large area.

The three biotechnology blocks need different kinds of revision

Unit 11 is computational. It names sequence databases, BLAST and FASTA, pairwise and multiple alignments, gene annotation, phylogenetics, protein structure prediction including AI-based methods, drug design and systems biology. A useful diagnostic is to explain what an alignment establishes, what it merely suggests and what experimental result would strengthen a functional claim. Memorising the expansion of BLAST alone does not answer that reasoning problem. In a practice notebook, separate sequence identity, homology, function and structure so you do not treat them as synonyms.

Unit 12 is process and engineering. It explicitly includes introductory calculus and linear algebra, material and energy balances, transport, thermodynamics in biological systems, batch and continuous growth, bioreactors, mass transfer, fermentation, enzyme immobilisation, downstream purification, plant design and metabolic engineering. A life-science student who has never solved a balance equation should start with a small defined system, mark what enters and leaves, and check units before trying a long bioreactor problem. Conversely, a biotechnology graduate with process coursework may need more of the traditional organismal units. The syllabus does not state a fixed distribution between those backgrounds.

Unit 13 is application and technology: recombinant DNA, medical, animal, agriculture, marine and environmental biotechnology. It includes genome editing, vaccines and diagnostics, organoids, marker-assisted breeding, wastewater treatment and bioremediation. Here a strong answer often connects a tool to a purpose and a limitation. For example, a marker helps track an inherited region under stated assumptions; it is not itself proof that a plant has the desired phenotype. Make a two-column sheet of “method” and “claim it can support,” and add the missing control for each claim.

How to revise across the transition without guessing a weightage

First mark each revised subheading as already studied, partly studied or unfamiliar. A unit title alone is too coarse: you may know classical ecology but not the act and policy subsection of the revised unit 10, or know molecular cloning but not the marine biotechnology subsection of unit 13. Next choose one official older Life Sciences paper to diagnose general Part B/C reasoning, recording every miss by revised unit and by cause: concept, interpretation, method or time. Older papers are useful for these skills, but their distribution reflects the old syllabus and cannot establish December 2026 weightage.

Reserve a separate first pass for the revised-only or expanded subheadings in units 11–13 and 14. Work one explanation and one data or experimental question for each block before increasing speed. Then mix new and familiar topics in timed sets. If your mock shows repeated errors in biomolecules or genetics, do not skip those foundations simply because biotechnology is new. The merger notice promises optional choice to accommodate different backgrounds; it does not publish a reliable topic quota, so an hours planner based on imaginary quotas would mislead you.

A four-week example illustrates the process, not a universal schedule. In week 1, compare your notes with the two PDFs and tag gaps. In week 2, repair two high-impact foundation gaps and learn the basic vocabulary of unit 11. In week 3, practise balances and process flow for unit 12 alongside one older paper. In week 4, study one application in each unit 13 subsection, then run a mixed timed set and review errors. Change that sequence if your diagnostic shows a different weakness. Keep the checklist below as a record of coverage, not a score prediction.

Mathematical Sciences

Four units on four pages, titled as a common syllabus for Part B and Part C. Unit 1 holds analysis and linear algebra; Unit 2 complex analysis, algebra and topology; Unit 3 ordinary and partial differential equations, numerical analysis, calculus of variations, linear integral equations and classical mechanics; Unit 4 probability and statistics. This subject also differs in marking: Part B and Part C carry 3 and 4.75 marks, Part C questions may have one or more correct options with credit only for identifying all of them, and Part C has no negative marking.

Physical Sciences

The PDF has two blocks and uses its own letters. "Part A (Core)" has six sections: mathematical methods of physics, classical mechanics, electromagnetic theory, quantum mechanics, thermodynamic and statistical physics, and electronics and experimental methods. "Part B (Advanced)" has nine: the same six at an advanced level, then atomic and molecular physics, condensed matter physics and nuclear and particle physics. Do not confuse these with the exam's Part A, B and C. The CSIR-HRDG scheme page says exam Part B is drawn from the Core part of the syllabus, and exam Part C from the Advanced part and the Core part.

Where the official pages differ

Turn the map into a checklist

The list below uses only the official unit titles, so each tick means "I have read this block of the PDF and attempted questions on it". Choose your subject and keep the PDF open beside it.

Questions