NEW DELHI: National Testing Agency (NTA) announced on Saturday that NEET-UG for 2025 will revert to its pre-Covid pattern. There will be no optional questions, and the test duration will return to three hours.
The exam will now consist of 180 compulsory questions to be attempted within 180 minutes. Additionally, NTA clarified in another notice that APAAR (Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry) ID is not mandatory, following its Jan 14 directive for aspirants to update their Aadhaar credentials and integrate their APAAR.
However, these piecemeal notices have left candidates confused as they await the start of registrations. Previously, NTA would announce registrations and provide all relevant details in a single information bulletin. Already behind schedule, it is reported that after being reprimanded by the ministry of education, NTA only recently initiated communication regarding requisition and selection of exam centres.
NTA stated that the flexible format introduced in 2021 to accommodate pandemic-related challenges – allowing candidates to attempt 180 questions out of 200 – was applicable only until the 2024 exams. From 2025 onwards, all NEET-UG question papers will contain 180 compulsory questions (45 each for Physics and Chemistry, and 90 for Biology) with a total duration of three hours.
While the exam format is reverting to its pre-Covid structure, the registration dates for NEET-UG 2025 remain unannounced.
By comparison, for the 2020 exam, the online registration period was from Dec 15, 2019, to Jan 1, 2020, with a correction window between Jan 15 and 31, 2020.
NTA released syllabus for NEET-UG 2025 in Dec 2024, issued a notice about Aadhaar and APAAR on Jan 14, and announced on Jan 16 that the exam would be conducted in pen-paper mode. This was followed by two more notices (one again on APAAR) Saturday. “There are multiple public notices,. Ten or eleven days ago, NTA issued a notice on APAAR ID, and today another one stating it is not mandatory. Instead of issuing multiple notices with fragmented information, NTA should release a comprehensive information bulletin,” said an aspirant.