JEE Mains Physics Guide
How JEE Mains Physics actually works
A 3,482-question analysis of every JEE Mains shift from 2021 to 2026. 25 Physics questions, +4 for a right answer and −1 for a wrong one, on one clock shared with Chemistry and Maths. We mapped which chapters the paper leans on now, the 27 chapter playbooks, the formulas, what moved since 2021, and the distractor traps.
- Past-year questions
- 3,482
- Every shift
- 2021–2026
- Chapters
- 28
- Playbooks
- 27
- have a numeric answer
- 27%
The paper you are sitting
Physics 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 Physics
- ~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 30% of the paper
On the 2025–26 papers the 4 cornerstone chapters set 7.6 of the 25 questions on an average paper. Electrostatics alone sets about one in 11.
How the 3,482 questions break down
All 28 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electrostatics | 2.21 | 1.66 | 251 | 28% | Cornerstone | The largest chapter on the recent papers. Coulomb's law, field and potential, Gauss's law and capacitors; capacitors alone are a large share, so learn the slab and combination rules cold. |
| Ray Optics | 2.02 | 0.93 | 169 | 30% | Cornerstone | Grown into a cornerstone. Mirrors, refraction, lenses and prisms each come down to one equation used with a fixed sign convention, so the convention is half the chapter. |
| Units and Measurements | 1.72 | 1.24 | 190 | 10% | Cornerstone | Dimensions and errors on nearly every paper, and it has grown. Quick questions once the dimensional formulas of the common quantities are known by heart. |
| System of Particles and Rotational Motion | 1.64 | 1.05 | 168 | 44% | Cornerstone | Moment of inertia feeds torque, angular momentum and rolling. Many of its questions have numeric answers, so learn the standard results and the two axis theorems exactly. |
| Current Electricity | 1.28 | 1.78 | 230 | 43% | Core | Still about one question a paper, though smaller than in the early papers. Kirchhoff's laws, bridges, meters and cells; many answers are numbers, so no option will catch a slip. |
| Wave Optics | 1.17 | 0.74 | 119 | 38% | Core | Young's double slit carries most of it: fringe width, fringe position and intensity. It has grown since the early papers. |
| Moving Charges and Magnetism | 1.15 | 1.27 | 172 | 28% | Core | The field of a wire, a loop and a solenoid, the force on a moving charge, and the galvanometer conversions. Directions decide many answers. |
| Thermodynamics | 1.07 | 0.84 | 125 | 17% | Core | The first law, the four processes and the heat engine. Read work, heat and internal energy off a P–V graph with the sign convention fixed. |
| Mechanical Properties of Fluids | 1.07 | 0.72 | 113 | 33% | Core | Pressure, Bernoulli, viscosity and surface tension. It has grown since the early papers, and most of its questions are calculations. |
| Semiconductor Electronics | 1.01 | 1.05 | 145 | 16% | Core | Diodes, the Zener regulator and logic gates. Mostly reading a circuit or a truth table; transistors have not been asked in the recent papers. |
| Dual Nature of Radiation and Matter | 0.90 | 0.95 | 131 | 6% | Long tail | The photoelectric equation and the de Broglie wavelength. Short questions, few with numeric answers, and the laws are often asked as statements. |
| Electromagnetic Waves | 0.85 | 0.75 | 108 | 13% | Long tail | The wave equation, energy and intensity, and the order of the spectrum. Mostly recall and one-line calculations. |
| Motion in a Plane | 0.82 | 1.18 | 151 | 24% | Long tail | Projectiles, relative velocity and circular motion. Lighter than in the early papers, but each question is a vector split into two perpendicular parts. |
| Work, Energy and Power | 0.79 | 0.92 | 123 | 29% | Long tail | The work-energy theorem, power and collisions. Energy conservation usually beats a force analysis. |
| Oscillations | 0.68 | 0.93 | 120 | 32% | Long tail | Simple harmonic motion, springs and pendulums. Lighter than in the early papers; time-period questions dominate. |
| Kinetic Theory | 0.68 | 0.83 | 110 | 10% | Long tail | Gas laws, molecular speeds and degrees of freedom. Lighter than before; the degrees-of-freedom table answers a large part of it. |
| Electromagnetic Induction | 0.68 | 0.63 | 90 | 46% | Long tail | Faraday's law, motional emf and inductance. Nearly half its questions have numeric answers. |
| Gravitation | 0.60 | 1.03 | 128 | 9% | Long tail | Field, potential, escape speed and satellites. It has shrunk by almost half since the early papers. |
| Atoms | 0.60 | 0.68 | 92 | 32% | Long tail | Bohr's model and the hydrogen spectrum: radius, energy and the spectral series. Scaling with Z and n answers most questions. |
| Mechanical Properties of Solids | 0.57 | 0.56 | 78 | 42% | Long tail | Young's modulus, stress and strain, and the elastic energy of a stretched wire. Almost every question is a calculation. |
| Thermal Properties of Matter | 0.57 | 0.44 | 66 | 29% | Long tail | Expansion, calorimetry, conduction and cooling. A small chapter of direct calculations. |
| Motion in a Straight Line | 0.55 | 0.81 | 103 | 27% | Long tail | The equations of motion and graphs of motion. Lighter than in the early papers; read every graph's slope and area. |
| Waves | 0.55 | 0.58 | 80 | 50% | Long tail | The wave equation, strings and pipes, beats and the Doppler effect. Half its questions have numeric answers. |
| Laws of Motion | 0.52 | 0.80 | 101 | 15% | Long tail | Newton's laws, friction and pulleys. Lighter than in the early papers, but its free-body habit runs through all of mechanics. |
| Nuclei | 0.52 | 0.76 | 97 | 24% | Long tail | Mass defect, binding energy and Q-values. Radioactivity has almost stopped appearing, so the binding-energy pages now carry the chapter. |
| Alternating Current | 0.49 | 0.93 | 113 | 34% | Long tail | Reactance, impedance, resonance and power in an LCR circuit. It has shrunk by about half since the early papers. |
| Magnetism and Matter | 0.27 | 0.35 | 46 | 22% | Long tail | Bar magnets, the earth's field and magnetic materials. A small chapter, mostly recall of the material classes. |
| Communication Systems | 0.00 | 0.61 | 63 | 17% | Left the paper | Set in the early papers and none since. Its notes stay up for the older papers. |
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 0 questions dated before 2021 are left out of every rate.
What’s inside
Strategy
Four chapters carry the most marks. 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
Ray Optics has roughly doubled and Units and Measurements has grown; Current Electricity, Gravitation and Alternating Current have shrunk; Communication Systems has left the paper.
Traps
The distractors JEE Physics reuses: the wrong power of r, a sign convention dropped, the spin energy forgotten, and the blind numeric guess that costs a mark.
The formula sheet holds 261 formulas across 27 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 28 chapters have notes, including Communication Systems, which has left the paper.
All JEE Mains Physics 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: 1 October 2026.