Registration Eligibilty

NEST 2020 Eligibility Criteria 

The eligibility criteria for the NEST exam is as follows:

• Candidates should be a Class XII pass in science stream from a recognised board in India with a minimum of 60% aggregate marks. (55% for SC/PwD category candidates)
• Candidates should have passed Class XII either in 2018 or 2019. Candidates who have appeared for their Class XII exams in 2020 are also eligible to apply.
• Candidates should have studied a combination of three subjects - Biology, Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics in classes XI and XII.

Age Criteria

Candidates belonging to General and OBC categories should be born on or after August 1, 2000, in order to fulfil the NEST eligibility criteria. Age limit relaxation of five years is given to candidates belonging to SC/ ST /Divyangjan category.

Exam Pattern & Syllabus

The National Entrance Screening Test (NEST) 2020 exam pattern provides details about the question paper of the upcoming examination. The National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar will conduct NEST 2020 on June 6 jointly with Department of Atomic Energy Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences (UM-DAE CEBS). The entrance exam will be held in a Computer-Based Test (CBT) mode. Moreover, there will be two sessions of NEST 2020 on the exam day i.e. morning shift and evening shift. Candidates can check all about the exam pattern of NEST 2020 including, key features, exam schedule, subject details and marking scheme as mentioned on this page below. 

NEST 2020 Exam Pattern Highlights 

The main features of the question paper of NEST 2020, a CBT mode exam will be as under: 

Features	Details
Exam mode	Online mode - CBT
Exam level	National level - Undergraduate exam
Test language	English only
Type of questions	Objective-type of questions
Total questions	70 questions
Total marks	180 marks

NEST 2020 Exam Schedule 

The exam timings for both the sessions of NEST 2020 will be as under:

• Morning shift - From 9 am to 12:30 pm 
• Evening shift - From 2 pm to 5:30 pm 

NEST 2020 Sectional Weightage 

The section-wise allotment of questions and marks will be as under:

Section	Subject	Marks
I - General	10 questions	30 marks
II - Biology	15 questions	50 marks
III - Chemistry	15 questions	50 marks
IV - Mathematics	15 questions	50 marks
V - Physics	15 questions	50 marks
Total	70 questions	230 marks

NEST 2020 Marking Scheme

The evaluation of NEST exam will be done as under: 

Sections	Marking Scheme
Section I - General	The section will carry 10 questions of 30 marks i.e. each question will have 3 marks weightage. There will no negative marking in case of wrong attempts in this section.
Section II to V	The sections will carry 15 questions of 50 marks each.  There is no information about marks weightage for each question.  There will be some negative marking in case of incorrect attempts

NEST  Exam syllabus 2020

NEST syllabus 2020 has been released. NEST 2020 syllabus if released online on the official website of the science entrance exam. Questions in NEST exam are asked from topics present in the syllabus of Class XI and XII books. Regarding the same, the official website informs that questions in NEST exam are mainly science syllabus of class XI and XII that is present in NCERT/ CBSE books .

NEST exam will contain questions from the General section- Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics. It may also be noted that there is no prescribed syllabus for General section of the exam. The official website informs, "This section tests candidate's familiarity with, but not detailed understanding of, major historical milestones in subjects like Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science and Environmental Science." 

NEST Syllabus 2020 for Biology

Candidates can go through important topics that they should consider studying in order to score well in IIT JAM Biology paper as mentioned in the table below:

Cell Biology	Genetics and Evolution
Ecology	Humans and Environment
Biotechnology	Biology of Animal Systems
Biology of Plant Systems	Systematics

NEST Syllabus 2020 for Chemistry

Candidates can go through important topics that they should consider studying in order to score well in IIT JAM Chemistry paper as mentioned in the table below:

Important Topics for Physical Chemistry
Measurements in chemistry	Mole concept
Gaseous and liquid states	Atomic structure and chemical bonding
Thermodynamics	Chemical equilibrium
Solid state	Solutions
Important Topics for Surface Chemistry
Adsorption	Colloidal state
Important Topics for Inorganic Chemistry
Classification of elements and periodicity in properties	s-Block elements
p-Block elements	Coordination compound
Metals and metallurgy
Important Topics for Organic Chemistry
Basic concepts	Nomenclature
Reactive intermediates	Aromatic compounds
Alkenes and Alkynes	Phenols
Haloalkanes (Alkyl halides)	Aldehydes and Ketones
Ethers	Carbohydrate
Amines	Polymers
Amino acids and proteins

NEST Syllabus 2020 for Physics

Candidates can go through important topics that they should consider studying in order to score well in IIT JAM Physics paper as mentioned in the table below:

Units and dimensions	Design of some simple experiments
Systems of particles	Law of gravitation
Hooke’s law and stress	Conservation of angular momentum
Pressure in a fluid	Sound and mechanical waves
Thermal physics	Electricity and magnetism
Capacitance	Electric current
Biot-Savart’s law and Ampere’s law	Magnetic moment of a current loop
Electromagnetic induction	Optics
Modern physics	Photoelectric effect

NEST Syllabus 2020 for Mathematics

Candidates can go through important topics that they should consider studying in order to score well in IIT JAM Mathematics paper as mentioned in the table below:

Algebra	Trigonometry
Analytical geometry	Differential calculus
Integral calculus	Vectors

How To Prepare

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