JEE Main 2027 Physics — Exam Pattern & Marking
JEE Main (Paper 1, B.E./B.Tech) is a computer-based test with three subjects — Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics — carrying equal weight. Here is the pattern that has been stable in recent years and is expected to carry into 2027.
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Subjects | Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics |
| Questions per subject | 25 (all compulsory) |
| Section A | 20 multiple-choice questions (MCQs) |
| Section B | 5 numerical-value questions |
| Marks per subject | 100 |
| Total questions / marks | 75 / 300 |
| Duration | 3 hours (180 minutes) |
Marking scheme: every correct answer earns +4. In Section A (MCQs) a wrong answer costs -1. Since 2025 all five Section B (numerical) questions are compulsory, and recent sessions have applied -1 negative marking to Section B as well — so treat every question as carrying negative marking and avoid blind guessing.
Always verify: NTA can revise the pattern each cycle. The official JEE Main 2027 information bulletin (expected around October 2026) is the final word — cross-check before your attempt.
Full Syllabus & Chapter-wise Weightage
The table below lists every NTA JEE Main Physics unit, the class it mainly comes from, its typical share of the paper, and how much it should weigh in your prep.
| # | Unit | Class | Weightage | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Units and Measurements | 11 | 6-8% | High |
| 2 | Kinematics | 11 | 3-5% | Medium |
| 3 | Laws of Motion | 11 | 2-3% | Low |
| 4 | Work, Energy and Power | 11 | 3-4% | Medium |
| 5 | Rotational Motion | 11 | 6-8% | High |
| 6 | Gravitation | 11 | 2-3% | Low |
| 7 | Properties of Solids and Liquids | 11 | 9-11% | High |
| 8 | Thermodynamics | 11 | 4-6% | Medium |
| 9 | Kinetic Theory of Gases | 11 | 2-3% | Low |
| 10 | Oscillations and Waves | 11 | 4-6% | Medium |
| 11 | Electrostatics | 12 | 9-11% | High |
| 12 | Current Electricity | 12 | 3-5% | Medium |
| 13 | Magnetic Effects of Current and Magnetism | 12 | 5-7% | High |
| 14 | Electromagnetic Induction and Alternating Currents | 12 | 4-5% | Medium |
| 15 | Electromagnetic Waves | 12 | 2-3% | Low |
| 16 | Optics | 12 | 12-14% | High |
| 17 | Dual Nature of Matter and Radiation | 12 | 3-5% | Medium |
| 18 | Atoms and Nuclei | 12 | 4-5% | Medium |
| 19 | Electronic Devices | 12 | 3-5% | Medium |
| 20 | Experimental Skills | 11 & 12 | 1-2% | Low |
Where the marks are. Just six high-priority units — Optics, Electrostatics, Properties of Solids and Liquids, Rotational Motion, Magnetic Effects of Current, and Units and Measurements — together make up close to half the paper. Lock these down first.
Note on weightage: these percentages are indicative, based on recent-year trends, and are not official NTA figures. The exam follows the current NTA JEE Main (NCERT-aligned) syllabus, which carries forward to 2027 unless NTA revises it. Always cross-check with the latest notification on the NTA website.
Detailed Syllabus — Class 11: Mechanics (Units 1-6)
1. Units and Measurements
Units and systems of units; SI base and derived units; least count and significant figures; errors in measurement and their combination; dimensions of physical quantities, dimensional analysis and its applications.
2. Kinematics
Frame of reference; motion in a straight line; position-time and velocity-time graphs; uniformly accelerated motion and its equations; scalars and vectors, vector addition, resolution, scalar and vector products, unit vectors; relative velocity; motion in a plane, projectile motion and uniform circular motion.
3. Laws of Motion
Force and inertia; Newton's three laws of motion; momentum and impulse; conservation of linear momentum and its applications; equilibrium of concurrent forces; static, kinetic and rolling friction; dynamics of uniform circular motion — motion on level and banked roads.
4. Work, Energy and Power
Work done by constant and variable forces; kinetic and potential energy; work-energy theorem and power; potential energy of a spring; conservation of mechanical energy; conservative and non-conservative forces; motion in a vertical circle; elastic and inelastic collisions in one and two dimensions.
5. Rotational Motion
Centre of mass of a two-particle system and of a rigid body; moment of a force, torque, angular momentum and its conservation; moment of inertia, radius of gyration, moments of inertia of simple shapes; parallel and perpendicular axes theorems; equilibrium of rigid bodies; equations of rotational motion and the comparison of linear and rotational motion.
6. Gravitation
Universal law of gravitation; acceleration due to gravity and its variation with altitude and depth; Kepler's laws of planetary motion; gravitational potential energy and gravitational potential; escape velocity; orbital velocity of a satellite and geostationary satellites.
Detailed Syllabus — Class 11: Thermal Physics, Oscillations & Waves (Units 7-10)
7. Properties of Solids and Liquids
Elastic behaviour and stress-strain relation, Hooke's law, Young's, bulk and rigidity moduli; fluid pressure and Pascal's law; viscosity, Stokes' law, terminal velocity, streamline and turbulent flow; Bernoulli's principle and its applications; surface energy and surface tension, angle of contact, capillary rise; heat and temperature, thermal expansion, specific heat, calorimetry, change of state and latent heat; heat transfer by conduction, convection and radiation.
8. Thermodynamics
Thermal equilibrium and the zeroth law; concept of temperature; heat, work and internal energy; the first law of thermodynamics; isothermal and adiabatic processes; the second law of thermodynamics — reversible and irreversible processes.
9. Kinetic Theory of Gases
Equation of state of a perfect gas; work done in compressing a gas; assumptions of kinetic theory; pressure and the kinetic interpretation of temperature; rms speed of molecules; degrees of freedom and the law of equipartition of energy; mean free path and Avogadro's number.
10. Oscillations and Waves
Periodic motion — period and frequency; simple harmonic motion and its equation, phase; oscillations of a spring, force constant, energy in SHM; simple pendulum and its time period; wave motion — longitudinal and transverse waves, speed of a travelling wave; superposition principle and reflection of waves; standing waves in strings and organ pipes, harmonics; beats.
Detailed Syllabus — Class 12: Electrostatics to Electromagnetic Waves (Units 11-15)
11. Electrostatics
Conservation and quantisation of charge, Coulomb's law and the superposition principle; electric field and field lines; electric dipole and torque on a dipole; electric flux and Gauss's law with applications (long wire, plane sheet, spherical shell); electric potential and potential energy, equipotential surfaces; conductors and dielectrics, polarization; capacitors and their combinations, parallel-plate capacitor with and without a dielectric, energy stored in a capacitor.
12. Current Electricity
Electric current and drift velocity; Ohm's law and resistance; V-I characteristics of ohmic and non-ohmic conductors; electrical energy and power; resistivity and its temperature dependence, colour code; series and parallel combinations of resistors; emf and internal resistance of a cell, cells in series and parallel; Kirchhoff's laws; Wheatstone bridge and metre bridge.
13. Magnetic Effects of Current and Magnetism
Biot-Savart law and the field of a circular loop; Ampere's law applied to a straight wire and a solenoid; force on a moving charge and on a current-carrying conductor; force between parallel currents (definition of the ampere); torque on a current loop, the moving-coil galvanometer and its conversion to ammeter and voltmeter; current loop and bar magnet as magnetic dipoles; para-, dia- and ferromagnetism and the effect of temperature.
14. Electromagnetic Induction and Alternating Currents
Faraday's law, induced emf and current, Lenz's law and eddy currents; self and mutual inductance; alternating current and voltage, peak and rms values; reactance and impedance; series LCR circuit and resonance; power in AC circuits and wattless current; AC generator and transformer.
15. Electromagnetic Waves
Displacement current; electromagnetic waves, their transverse nature and characteristics; the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays) and applications of EM waves.
Detailed Syllabus — Class 12: Optics & Modern Physics (Units 16-19)
16. Optics
Reflection and refraction of light at plane and spherical surfaces, mirror and thin-lens formulae, lens-maker's formula; total internal reflection and its applications; magnification and power of a lens, lenses in contact; refraction through a prism; microscope and astronomical telescope and their magnifying powers; wave optics — Huygens' principle, interference and Young's double-slit experiment and fringe width, diffraction at a single slit, polarization, Brewster's law and Polaroids.
17. Dual Nature of Matter and Radiation
Dual nature of radiation; photoelectric effect, Hertz and Lenard observations, Einstein's photoelectric equation and the particle nature of light; matter waves and the de Broglie relation.
18. Atoms and Nuclei
Alpha-particle scattering and Rutherford's model of the atom; Bohr model, energy levels and the hydrogen spectrum; composition and size of the nucleus, isotopes, isobars and isotones; radioactivity — alpha, beta and gamma decay and the radioactive decay law; mass-energy relation, mass defect, binding energy per nucleon, nuclear fission and fusion.
19. Electronic Devices
Semiconductors; the semiconductor diode and its I-V characteristics in forward and reverse bias; diode as a rectifier; I-V characteristics of LED, photodiode, solar cell and Zener diode; Zener diode as a voltage regulator; logic gates (OR, AND, NOT, NAND and NOR).
Detailed Syllabus — Section B: Experimental Skills (Unit 20)
Section B carries about 20% of the paper and tests familiarity with the principle, apparatus and observations of the standard experiments. You should know each of the following:
- Vernier calipers — measuring internal/external diameter and depth of a vessel.
- Screw gauge — thickness or diameter of a thin sheet/wire.
- Simple pendulum — dissipation of energy; graph of amplitude-squared vs time.
- Metre scale — mass of an object by the principle of moments.
- Young's modulus of the material of a metallic wire.
- Surface tension of water by capillary rise, and the effect of detergents.
- Coefficient of viscosity of a liquid by terminal velocity of a sphere.
- Cooling curve — temperature of a hot body vs time.
- Speed of sound in air at room temperature using a resonance tube.
- Specific heat capacity of a solid and a liquid by the method of mixtures.
- Resistivity of a wire using a metre bridge; resistance of a wire using Ohm's law.
- Potentiometer — comparing emfs of two cells; internal resistance of a cell.
- Galvanometer — resistance and figure of merit by the half-deflection method.
- Focal length of a convex mirror, concave mirror and convex lens (parallax method).
- Prism — plot of angle of deviation vs angle of incidence.
- Refractive index of a glass slab using a travelling microscope.
- p-n junction diode and Zener diode characteristic curves (including reverse breakdown).
- Identification of a diode, LED, resistor and capacitor from a mixed collection.
How This Course Is Organized
- Chapter 1 (this one): your syllabus map — exam pattern, weightage, and priorities. No questions here.
- Chapter 2 onward: one chapter per unit, starting with Units and Measurements. Each topic chapter has five graded practice sets — 2 Easy, 2 Medium, and 1 Hard — with 25+ questions each, every one carrying a step-by-step explanation.
A simple way to use it
- Start with the high-priority units (see the table above) — they return the most marks per hour of study.
- Climb the difficulty ladder: clear both Easy sets first to lock the basics, then Medium for exam-style application, then the Hard set to stretch yourself.
- Read every explanation, even for questions you got right — the reasoning is where the real learning is.
- Practise with negative marking in mind: train yourself to recognise when to attempt and when to skip.
That's the whole plan. When you're ready, move on to Chapter 2 — Units and Measurements.