JEE Mains Mathematics Guide
How JEE Mains Maths actually works
A 3,556-question analysis of every JEE Mains shift from 2021 to 2026. 25 Maths questions, +4 for a right answer and −1 for a wrong one, on one clock shared with Physics and Chemistry. We mapped which chapters the paper leans on now, the 24 chapter playbooks, the formulas, what moved since 2021, and the distractor traps.
- Past-year questions
- 3,556
- Every shift
- 2021–2026
- Chapters
- 27
- Playbooks
- 24
- have a numeric answer
- 30%
The paper you are sitting
Maths is one of three sections in JEE Mains Paper 1. Since 2025 each section is 20 multiple-choice and 5 numeric-answer questions, all compulsory. The 2021–24 papers printed ten numeric questions and asked for five, so older papers in the bank show more questions each.
- Questions
- 25
- Marks
- 100
- Clock
- 180 min
- Suggested for Maths
- ~60 min
20 MCQ · 5 numeric
+4 right · −1 wrong
shared by all three subjects
2.4 min a question
Read this before anything else
The same −1 means opposite rules for the two formats
On a multiple-choice question a blind guess is right one time in four for +4 and wrong three times for −1 each, so it is worth something on average:
- 4 options left: +0.25. A blind guess still pays on average. Never leave an MCQ blank at the end.
- 3 options left: +0.67. Rule out one option and the guess is worth two-thirds of a mark.
- 2 options left: +1.5. Down to two, a guess is worth more than a mark.
A numeric answer guessed blind: close to −1. A numeric answer has no options, so a guess is almost never right and still costs a mark. Enter one only when you have worked it out.
4 chapters are 32% of the paper
On the 2025–26 papers the 4 cornerstone chapters set 8.1 of the 25 questions on an average paper. Conic Sections alone sets about one in 8.
How the 3,556 questions break down
All 27 chapters, heaviest on the recent papers first. A rate is the chapter’s share of that window’s questions, scaled to one 25-question paper, so the early and recent columns compare even though the papers changed length.
| Chapter | 2025–26 | 2021–24 | Questions | % numeric | Tier | What it asks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conic Sections | 2.97 | 2.24 | 346 | 30% | Cornerstone | The largest chapter on the paper, and it has grown. The circle, parabola, ellipse and hyperbola each come with their tangents; one tangency condition per curve answers most of them. |
| Three Dimensional Geometry | 1.76 | 1.93 | 268 | 28% | Cornerstone | Lines and planes in space: the foot, image and distance, and the shortest distance between skew lines. Each task is one formula once the direction ratios are read correctly. |
| Relations and Functions | 1.73 | 1.28 | 199 | 24% | Cornerstone | Grown into a cornerstone. Relations are careful counting, often with a numeric answer; functions are domain, range, counting maps and functional equations. |
| Sequences and Series | 1.65 | 1.52 | 221 | 37% | Cornerstone | Two conditions on an AP or a GP, then a term or a sum; the series pages ask you to find the kth term first. A large share has numeric answers. |
| Definite Integration | 1.30 | 1.41 | 196 | 33% | Core | Direct evaluation and piecewise integrands carry much of it; the a + b − x property is the time-saver when a direct attack looks hopeless. |
| Permutations and Combinations | 1.22 | 1.09 | 160 | 58% | Core | More of it is numeric-answer than any other chapter still on the paper, so there are no options to catch a slip. Own it outright. |
| Vector Algebra | 1.19 | 1.31 | 182 | 24% | Core | Vector equations, magnitudes from lengths and angles, areas and triple products. Short questions; marks are lost to sign and order slips. |
| Differential Equations | 1.14 | 1.31 | 180 | 26% | Core | Three solving methods and the pages that disguise them. The answer is often a second step: a value, a maximum or an integral of the solution. |
| Probability | 1.11 | 1.03 | 149 | 19% | Core | Counting in disguise, then Bayes' theorem and the binomial distribution. Set up the sample space once and count both parts the same way. |
| Binomial Theorem | 1.05 | 1.20 | 165 | 45% | Core | The general term does half the work, coefficient sums the other half. Nearly half its questions have numeric answers, so accuracy matters more than speed here. |
| Application of Integrals | 1.03 | 0.75 | 117 | 35% | Core | Area between curves, every time: sketch first, then integrate top minus bottom. It has grown since the early papers. |
| Complex Numbers | 1.00 | 1.00 | 142 | 29% | Core | Half algebra, half geometry. Choose the right form, and draw a locus before expanding it into x and y. |
| Quadratic Equations | 1.00 | 0.78 | 119 | 32% | Core | Vieta and the discriminant, plus equations that are quadratics after a substitution. Most wrong answers keep a root the substitution should have dropped. |
| Limits and Continuity | 0.92 | 0.97 | 136 | 25% | Long tail | Standard limits, series expansions and the one-to-the-power-infinity rule; continuity is one equation. Counting points of discontinuity takes the longest. |
| Straight Lines | 0.92 | 0.74 | 112 | 18% | Long tail | A small toolkit — slope, distance, image — used two or three times in a row. The centres of a triangle are the most common setting. |
| Matrices | 0.89 | 0.78 | 115 | 38% | Long tail | High powers of a matrix by spotting a pattern, and the adjoint and determinant identities. Few long calculations. |
| Determinants | 0.84 | 1.00 | 136 | 16% | Long tail | Mostly systems of three equations with a constant left open: which values give one, none or infinitely many solutions. |
| Statistics | 0.62 | 0.62 | 88 | 34% | Long tail | Nearly all variance: write down Σx and Σx² first, and missing, wrong or combined data become a few lines of arithmetic. |
| Application of Derivatives | 0.59 | 1.12 | 140 | 27% | Long tail | Maxima and minima, monotonicity and tangents. It has shrunk by about half since the early papers, but still appears on many papers. |
| Trigonometric Identities | 0.51 | 0.28 | 48 | 13% | Long tail | The formula kit for all of trigonometry: evaluate a product or a power sum with the one identity that collapses it. |
| Inverse Trigonometric Functions | 0.49 | 0.49 | 70 | 23% | Long tail | Every question turns on the principal ranges; sums of inverse tangents often telescope. |
| Indefinite Integration | 0.41 | 0.29 | 46 | 30% | Long tail | An antiderivative matched to a printed form or evaluated at a point, so the constant matters. Choosing the substitution is the whole question. |
| Differentiation | 0.35 | 0.61 | 77 | 31% | Long tail | Simplify before differentiating, and count the points where a derivative fails to exist. Lighter than in the early papers. |
| Trigonometric Equations | 0.32 | 0.37 | 51 | 33% | Long tail | How many solutions lie in an interval. Reduce to one ratio of one angle, then count the roots on the interval itself. |
| Mathematical Reasoning | 0.00 | 0.64 | 67 | 3% | Left the paper | A question on most papers in the early years; none since. Its notes stay up for older papers. |
| Height & Distance | 0.00 | 0.14 | 15 | 0% | Left the paper | Set only in the early papers, and no longer on the paper. |
| Properties of Triangle | 0.00 | 0.10 | 11 | 45% | Left the paper | Rare in the early papers and absent from the recent ones. |
2025–26 is only two years of papers, so a small move in that column is noise. The chapter names link to the notes; the 9 questions dated before 2021 are left out of every rate.
What’s inside
Strategy
Four chapters carry the paper. Which to learn first, which answers to guess and which to leave, and how long to give the section.
Playbooks
One playbook for every chapter still on the paper: its pages, the skills in order, and the distractors it reuses.
Formulas
The formulas and results the paper actually tests, chapter by chapter, on one page.
Trends
Conic Sections and Relations and Functions have grown; Application of Derivatives has shrunk; three chapters have left the paper. What moved since the early papers.
Traps
The distractors JEE reuses: the shifted conic, the non-transitive relation, the negative greatest integer, and the blind numeric guess that costs a mark.
The formula sheet holds 191 formulas across 24 chapters.
Want the teaching, not just the strategy?
This guide tells you what the paper asks and in what order to learn it. The notes teach each chapter: foundations, worked examples, self-checks, drills and a mastery check for every page. All 27 chapters have notes, including the ones that have left the paper.
All JEE Mains Maths notesWhere the numbers come from
Every question from the 2021–2026 shifts is in the bank, tagged by chapter and subtopic. Click any “Drill” link and you see the exact questions a claim is about.
The bank does not grade JEE questions by difficulty, so this guide sets its tiers by weight alone: how many questions a chapter sets on the recent papers.
Data snapshot: 30 September 2026.