Should I Solve Previous Year Questions for NEET

Hello future-docs, if I have not been very clear in all of my previous blogs, let me say it again, NCERT AND PYQs ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT RESOURCES FOR NEET.

I’ll keep shouting it until you understand it, internalize it and stop wasting your time on looking for other resources.

Why are Previous Year Questions important for NEET?

Go and get a PYQ book or just download an online pdf/app. You can check the trend, all the questions repeat. Most of the time, the pattern of the question is the same and sometimes even the values repeat.

Biology is very NCERT based and full of repetitions, so is organic and inorganic chemistry. For physical chemistry and physics, a very clear trend of repeating concepts and topics is seen. 

Around 35 questions in physics have been repeated in NEET 2023 directly from the PYQs! That’s 140 marks! 140 marks is a good enough score, especially when you’re weak in physics. It is enough to get you a government medical seat.

PYQs from what years to solve for NEET.

See, in biology, just stick to the recent PYQs, that adhere to the NCERT. For other subjects, I’d advise to even try and solve the older PYQs from the 1900s and AIPMT era. 

The older questions might be a little tricky but please solve them regardless, you will thank yourself later.

Some examples of repeated questions are shown below.

I hope you get an idea, the question is not exactly framed the same way. But, the concept applied is the same for both questions. Here, is another example:

So, what you will do is solve the PYQs immediately after studying a chapter. This way, you will understand the main concepts in focus. The main topics are the topics that are repeated or even topics that have even appeared once in NEET papers (Don’t take a chance.)

Later, during question practice, make sure that you are solving questions from each variety, that is all the types of questions that you’ve seen in PYQs.

Other benefits of solving PYQs

The confidence!

When you solve questions from question banks or books, chances are they might not be at NEET level. They can be a little more difficult at par with JEE Advance level. You might try to solve these questions and fail which will result in low confidence.

So, when you solve questions that have already appeared in NEET and get them right, you get a very good confidence boost. This acts like positive reinforcement and makes you want to solve even more questions.

Idea of the difficult level.

As I said, question banks are not always accurate. Solving PYQs can help you filter out the difficult questions from your question banks, making sure that you are only solving NEET level questions and not wasting a lot of time on very difficult questions.

We will still advise you to solve moderately difficult questions of the JEE Mains level, just to prime your brain and to be prepared for the worst.

If you are low on time, stick to PYQs, if not – solve JEE Mains level questions.

Exam Feel

PYQs are the closest that you will get to seeing the exam before it actually happens. By solving PYQs, you’re making sure that you are used to the stress and anxiety of solving a real NEET paper.

Keep solving to make sure that you do not get nervous during the actual paper. You do not want to lose out on so many years of preparation due to poor stress management. You can also go through some anxiety management tips given here.

Tips to solve PYQs

Start Early: 

Don’t wait it out. Don’t try to complete all your syllabus before getting into PYQs. PYQs offer a lot of insights that are very important for that chapter preparation.

Without this information, you lose sight of what is important and what is relatively less important.

Use chapter wise PYQ Bundles

I don’t really remember the name of the app that I used during my preparation, but it offered chapter wise PYQs so that it’s simpler to solve them together after studying the chapter.

This way, you are not wasting unnecessary time on sorting them out and neither do you have to wait for the syllabus to get over before starting with PYQ practice.

Analyse

Don’t just solve once and then forget about it. Analyse your mistakes and make a mistake register. A mistake register is important even during question bank practice but it becomes VERY important during PYQ practice. You cannot afford to miss even one PYQ, it can cost you 4 or even 5 marks during the NEET exam.

Pro tip: Note down both the question and it’s solution in the mistake register.

Revisit and solve again

Go back after some months and solve all the PYQs again, keep revisiting the ‘mistake register’ after two solves too. The PYQs are very important, I can’t stress this enough.

Use for all 3 subjects

Do not skip the physics PYQs because they look scary. Solve them, they are most important. 

Do not skip Biology PYQs because they are too easy either. SOLVE THE PYQs

That’s it.

As you can see, I have said it a hundred times now, I’ll keep saying it- Solve your PYQs. It is like an insight into the examiner’s brain, which is very important to get a good score. Why would you want to miss out on this?

Keep solving and stay consistent. You can do this.

All the best, dear aspirants.