We analyzed 5,000 NEET Physics PYQs — here are the 12 chapters that show up every single year

We pulled 5,000 NEET Physics questions from 2014 to 2025. Tagged each one. Chapter. Sub-topic. Year. Difficulty. Took three weeks. Eyes were bleeding by the end.

One thing jumped out. Just 12 chapters produced roughly 78% of all questions. Every single year. The other 25-odd chapters rotate. They show up sometimes. Skip a year. Come back. But these 12? They're permanent.

If you're weak in any of these, fix it. Now. Not "later." Because come May 2026, you'll see them again. I'd bet money on it.

The 12 Chapters That Always Show Up

Here they are. No fluff.

Kinematics — 6-8 questions every year. Projectile motion. Relative velocity. Graphs. The v-t and x-t graph questions are free marks if you've done 20 of them.
Laws of Motion — 5-7 questions. Pseudo forces in accelerating frames. Friction on inclines. Pulley systems. The Atwood machine shows up more than it should.
Work, Energy & Power — 4-6 questions. Spring PE. Elastic and inelastic collisions. The work-energy theorem is a cheat code if you actually understand it.
Rotational Motion — 4-5 questions. Moment of inertia of standard shapes. Rolling without slipping. Torque questions paired with translational motion.
Gravitation — 3-4 questions. Orbital velocity. Variation of g with depth and height. Escape velocity. Kepler's third law.
SHM — 3-4 questions. Time period formulas for spring, pendulum, and the weird combined systems. Energy in SHM.
Thermodynamics — 5-6 questions. First law sign conventions (the one kids always mess up). Isothermal vs adiabatic graphs. Carnot cycle efficiency.
Kinetic Theory of Gases — 3-4 questions. RMS speed. Degrees of freedom. Mean free path. The ratio of specific heats gamma.
Current Electricity — 6-8 questions. Kirchhoff's laws in messy loops. Wheatstone and meter bridge. Drift velocity. Temperature dependence of resistance.
Magnetism & EMI — 5-7 questions. Biot-Savart for standard geometries. Moving charges in fields. AC circuits with LCR. Lenz's law direction problems.
Ray Optics — 4-5 questions. Lensmaker's equation. Prism deviation. TIR problems. Compound microscope and telescope magnifications.
Modern Physics — Atoms & Nuclei — 8-10 questions. Bohr model radius/energy formulas. De Broglie wavelength. Half-life calculations. Mass defect and binding energy curve.

Count the totals. That's 56-68 question slots against a 45-question paper. Yes, there's overlap — some chapters produce multiple questions per shift. Mechanics alone can fill 18-22 of the 45 Physics slots in a single NEET paper. Wild, right?

Why These 12 Stick

NTA doesn't randomly pick. They follow a blueprint. Same blueprint, year after year. The chapters above are core. They're foundational. They're testable in many ways — a Kinematics question can be a basic formula plug or a multi-concept monster. Same chapter, different difficulty.

And here's the kicker. NTA wants predictability. They need percentiles to be comparable across shifts. If one shift has 10 Modern Physics questions and another has 2, that's not fair. So they balance. Same weightage each year. Same core chapters.

Good news for you. Predictable means plannable.

The Chapters You Can Deprioritise

Not every chapter is must-do. Some show up 0-1 times a year. If you're time-starved, these are the ones to skim.

Semiconductors — 1-2 questions. Mostly NCERT factual. P-type, N-type, logic gates.
Communication Systems — 1 question. Sometimes 0. AM/FM, basic band stuff.
Fluid Mechanics — 1-2 questions. Surface tension, viscosity, Bernoulli basics.
Elasticity — 0-1 question. Young's modulus, bulk modulus.
Wave Optics — 1-2 questions. Diffraction, YDSE interference.

Notice a pattern? All these are Class 12 "extra" chapters. The ones coaching teachers rush through or skip entirely. Which is fine — they're low-yield. But don't fully skip them. A 90-minute NCERT read gets you 2-4 marks. Free.

How To Actually Use This List

Three things.

One. Print the 12 chapters. Stick them on your wall. Whenever you sit to study Physics, ask — "Is this on the list?" If yes, give it deep time. If no, give it surface time. Brutal but effective.

Two. When you take a mock on Examtro, filter by these 12 chapters. Our test generator lets you pick exact chapters — use it. Build a custom test with just these 12. Take it weekly. Track accuracy per chapter. The weak ones will show themselves fast.

Three. Solve previous year papers. But only from these 12 chapters first. Not "all PYQs." The 12. You'll see patterns repeat. The Bohr model question from 2018 looks the same as 2024. Just different numbers. Once you spot it, you can't un-see it.

What About The Hard Chapters?

Look. Rotational Motion. Magnetism. These are hard. They take time. They break heads. Lots of kids want to skip them.

Don't skip them. But don't over-invest either. Our data shows something interesting. The top 1% scorers (650+) do well across all 12. The 500-600 scorers? They ace Mechanics, Modern Physics, and Current Electricity. They lose marks in Rotational and Magnetism. That gap — right there — is the cutoff between "government seat" and "private only."

So if you're targeting AIIMS Delhi or MAMC, you need all 12 solid. If you're targeting a state government college (AIR 15,000-25,000), master 8-9 of the 12 well. Skip the hardest subtopics in Rotational and Magnetism. Pick those marks elsewhere.

What 2024 Actually Looked Like

Take NEET 2024 (May 5). Physics had 45 questions. We tagged every one. Modern Physics alone produced 9. Current Electricity produced 7. Mechanics (combined) produced 14. That's 30 of 45 from just three chapter groups. The remaining 15 came from Optics, Thermodynamics, SHM, Waves, and the small chapters.

Zero questions from Communication Systems. Zero from Elasticity. One from Semiconductors. Same story in 2023. Same in 2022.

So when a kid tells me they spent three weeks on Semiconductors "because it's easy marks," I wince. Sure, it's easy. But it's also one question. Three weeks for four marks. Meanwhile they haven't touched Bohr model. Nine questions. Gone.

The Honest Truth

People overthink this. The 12-chapter pattern isn't secret. Coaching teachers know it. Toppers know it. The difference between kids who crack NEET and kids who don't isn't access to this data. It's whether they act on it.

I've seen students with the full PYQ breakdown still score 400. Why? Because they spent two months on Rotational Motion trying to perfect it. And ran out of time for Modern Physics. Nine questions. Thirty-six marks. Evaporated.

Don't be that kid. Master the high-yield chapters first. Then go deep on the hard ones only if you have time. Marks are marks. Doesn't matter if they come from a Bohr model question or a pulley question. Same +4.

Get the easy 40 first. Then chase the hard 20. Always in that order.