About NEET-UG

NEET UG 2024 Exam Pattern

As per the NEET-UG 2024 latest news, after much deliberation, the NTA has bi-furcated the 4 subjects in the NEET UG 2024 Syllabus into 2 sections, Sections A & B. Check the table below.

In addition, the aspirants will get more choices in attempting questions than they had before the pandemic. However, the salient features of NEET-UG still exist.

• NEET UG continues to be a pen & paper exam like before. Similarly, in NEET UG 2024 also, you will have to record your response on an OMR sheet with a blue/black ball-point pen.
• The total duration of the exam continues to be 3 hours.
• Also, the NEET UG medium of exam will continue to be same – English, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Odia, Telugu, Tamil & Urdu.
• You will attempt MCQs in 2024 also.
• The total number of MCQs will be 200 but you have to attempt 180 questions only.
• The negative marking policy is not changing. You will get 4 marks for every right answer and lose 1 for every wrong answer.

NEET UG 2024 Exam Date

The table below illustrates all the important dates a NEET aspirant must be aware of. Candidates must go through it and take note

The Concept of NEET-UG Qualifying Score

In 2024, it has become especially important to understand the difference between the concept of ‘scoring the cut-off’ and ‘qualifying’ the NEET UG. Moreover, you should have at least an acquaintance with the concept of Percentiles to get the complete picture.

Firstly, the NEET UG measures an aspirant’s command over the concepts of Biology, Physics, and Chemistry. You are well aware that this measurement serves as a criterion to establish if the aspirant deserves the opportunity to get an MBBS seat in the various Government Medical Colleges in India. So, the minimum score at which an aspirant gets such a seat is the NEET UG ‘cut-off' for that year. However, this is not all that there is to it!

The NEET-UG also measures whether the candidates who did not score enough to get the above opportunity deserve to become practicing Doctors in India at all. The responsibilities and authority associated with a Doctor who has a license to practice in India warrant the existence of some point in academic ability below which one loses the eligibility to become such a doctor.

Most importantly, every Doctor who has a license to practice in India enjoys certain privileges equally, irrespective of the level and source of the qualification. In other words, whether the Doctor has an MBBS from AIIMS or from any medical university in the world, if she has got a license from the National Medical Commission, her opinion will have equal sway legally and professionally.

This is where the need for the concept of ‘qualifying’ NEET-UG and making it mandatory to be eligible to apply for a medical license in India came up. Therefore, the minimum NEET UG score at which you will be eligible to apply for a medical license for practicing in India, irrespective of the medical university or country you do your MBBS from, is the ‘qualifying’ score.

Variation in NEET-UG cut off

Certainly, the NEET UG cut-off score varies every year due to all the unavoidable variables that exist in every competitive exam. So, there was an obvious necessity to keep the qualifying score ‘floating’ too. That is the reason that the NEET UG qualifying score is a fixed percentile. Therefore, we said that an understanding of the percentile concept will help you to get the exact picture.

For further clarity, look at the table below. In this table, you can see how the NEET UG Qualifying score varied in 2020 & 2024 in spite of the fact that the Qualifying Percentile did not change.

In short, if you wish to become a doctor and practice in India, it is not at all mandatory to get selected in NEET-UG! All you need to do is score the qualifying marks in it and choose any government medical university abroad to complete MBBS. Finally, you must appear in the NEXT like everyone who does MBBS in India, and all the doctors who clear NEXT get the license to practice in India.

NEET UG Counseling 2024

Much litigation was going on in the Supreme Court in 2024 which delayed the NEET UG Results 2024 and this in turn, delayed the NEET UG Counseling 2024. Therefore, the Counseling started as late as in the 1st week of February’22 & it continued well into the last week of that month. To sum up, there was a total delay of 4 months in NEET UG Counseling 2024.

The body that conducts the NEET UG Counseling is the Medical Counseling Committee. The NEET-UG Counseling is the process through which the MCC allocates seats of MBBS, BDS, etc to selected NEET UG test takers according to their marks obtained in NEET UG. The process decides the fate of 83,000 seats of MBBS alone.

Though the wait for NEET-UG 2024 Counseling was unusually prolonged, even when things are normal and the events are happening at the right time in other academic years, this waiting period is by all means, a source of anguish & uncertainty.
As far as NEET UG Counseling 2024 is concerned, we can only hope that things will happen at the scheduled time and the aspirants will be spared the agonizing wait.