Which Year PYQs are Important for NET GATE JAM Exams ?

Hi Everyone,

I got a query from one of my student Shubham Tiwari (MSc Student from NIT JSR), he is asking about from where to start solving, learning or practicing PYQs, older years or recent years.
I decided to explain the whole breakdown in this Blog, so that other learners will also be benefitted.

First get the general idea, of all exams, in a 8+ Year of Teaching experience and I myself prepared for these exams, what I analyze is let assume a topic XYZ has been asked in every 2 years, what examiner do ? they raises difficulty in terms of mathematics or concept involved, assume that XYZ topic is asked in 2018 and then in 2021 and then 2023 and then 2025, so they start from basic formula level question, then next time some harder maths or variant will involve and then net time more conceptual problem has been asked. In most of the cases(90%) 2018 problem would be easier than 2025. Sometimes there are exceptions, they ask in recent years easier version of older years, but they degraded the marking from 2 marks to 1 marks question.

I tried to create a scenario of PYQs in your mind, hopefully you are getting my instincts what I am trying to say ?

Now, the question again is same , where to start solving PYQs?

Let us divide PYQs in terms of post and pre covid era, 2015-2019 and 2020-2026.

Problems of 2015-2019 are simpler, less concept involved as compared to 2020-2026.

If you are starting from scrap, you don’t know much about concept or you didn’t solve many problems of that topic, then in this case I would advice you to start with 2015 to 2026, simply straight year by year.

If you are dropper or you are preparing for long time, then I would advice try to solve recent papers 2020-2026.

This is all about the solving problems, but if you want to analyze the PYQs o not rely on older papers, always get the idea from 2020-2026, what they are asking , what type of problem they are asking in recent years.

There is one great exception, i.e., IIT JAM 2017 Physics, it is still harder no years after that match that level, you can put 2017 paper just parallel with 2026, but remember it is for practice not for analysis.

Now, if we talk about CSIR NET Physical Sciences & GATE Physics papers , some topics they stop to ask, some new topics they start asking, some older topics level / difficulty is improved, so always recent 5-6 year papers for getting idea what they can ask in upcoming years, but if you want to learn / practice I would suggest start from older papers level gradually increases.