NEET UG 2027 Botany — Exam Pattern & Marking
Biology is the single largest scoring area of NEET: it carries 360 of the 720 marks — as much as Physics and Chemistry combined — and is split into two equally weighted subjects, Botany and Zoology, of 180 marks each. For most medical aspirants Botany is the most reliably scoring subject in the whole paper, because the questions sit very close to the NCERT text. Here is the pattern in force since 2025 and expected to continue into 2027.
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Mode | Pen-and-paper (OMR sheet), single shift |
| Subjects | Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology |
| Botany questions | 45, all compulsory |
| Total questions | 180 (Physics 45 + Chemistry 45 + Botany 45 + Zoology 45) |
| Botany marks | 180 (45 x 4) |
| Total marks | 720 |
| Marking | +4 correct, -1 wrong, 0 unattempted |
| Duration | 180 minutes (3 hours) |
Every question is single-correct MCQ with four options, and there is negative marking, so accuracy matters as much as coverage. The earlier optional Section B (where you answered 45 of 50 questions per subject) was removed from NEET 2025 and remains removed — all 180 questions are now compulsory. Always reconfirm the finer details against the official NEET 2027 Information Bulletin closer to the exam.
How Biology Splits — Botany & Zoology
In the question paper, Biology is printed and scored as two separate subjects — Botany and Zoology — each with 45 questions and 180 marks. Treat them as two subjects of equal weight, because that is exactly how your NEET scorecard reports them.
This course covers Botany as 19 chapters — 10 from Class 11 and 9 from Class 12 — following the NCERT sequence used across the Gyan Ghar NEET bank. Biomolecules, Evolution and the human-body chapters are covered under Zoology. The table below gives each chapter's class and its priority tier; priority reflects how heavily the chapter has featured in recent NEET papers.
| # | Chapter | Class | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Living World | 11 | Low |
| 2 | Biological Classification | 11 | Medium |
| 3 | Plant Kingdom | 11 | Medium |
| 4 | Morphology of Flowering Plants | 11 | High |
| 5 | Anatomy of Flowering Plants | 11 | Medium |
| 6 | Cell: The Unit of Life | 11 | High |
| 7 | Cell Cycle and Cell Division | 11 | Medium |
| 8 | Photosynthesis in Higher Plants | 11 | High |
| 9 | Respiration in Plants | 11 | Medium |
| 10 | Plant Growth and Development | 11 | Medium |
| 11 | Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants | 12 | High |
| 12 | Principles of Inheritance and Variation | 12 | High |
| 13 | Molecular Basis of Inheritance | 12 | High |
| 14 | Microbes in Human Welfare | 12 | Medium |
| 15 | Biotechnology: Principles and Processes | 12 | High |
| 16 | Biotechnology and Its Applications | 12 | Medium |
| 17 | Organisms and Populations | 12 | Medium |
| 18 | Ecosystem | 12 | Medium |
| 19 | Biodiversity and Conservation | 12 | Medium |
[NEET Important] Genetics (Chapters 12-13), Cell Biology, Photosynthesis, Plant Reproduction and Biotechnology are the perennial high-yield zones of Botany. Priority bands are based on previous-year-question analysis, not official NTA weightage.
Class 11 Botany — Chapter-wise Syllabus
Chapter 1 - The Living World. Diversity in the living world; what 'living' means (growth, reproduction, metabolism, cellular organisation, consciousness); binomial nomenclature and the rules of naming; taxonomic categories and hierarchy; taxonomical aids (herbarium, botanical gardens, museums, keys, flora and manuals).
Chapter 2 - Biological Classification. Basis of the five-kingdom classification; Kingdom Monera (bacteria, archaebacteria, cyanobacteria); Kingdom Protista; Kingdom Fungi (Phycomycetes, Ascomycetes, Basidiomycetes, Deuteromycetes); plant and animal kingdoms in outline; viruses, viroids, prions and lichens.
Chapter 3 - Plant Kingdom. Algae (Chlorophyceae, Phaeophyceae, Rhodophyceae) and their pigments and stored food; bryophytes (liverworts and mosses); pteridophytes; gymnosperms; plant life cycles and alternation of generations (haplontic, diplontic, haplo-diplontic).
Chapter 4 - Morphology of Flowering Plants. The root, stem and leaf and their common modifications; the inflorescence (racemose and cymose); parts of a flower — calyx, corolla, androecium, gynoecium; aestivation and placentation; the fruit and the seed; floral formula and floral diagram; semi-technical description of the families Fabaceae, Solanaceae and Liliaceae.
Chapter 5 - Anatomy of Flowering Plants. The meristematic and permanent tissues; simple and complex tissues; the epidermal, ground and vascular tissue systems; the anatomy of dicot and monocot roots, stems and leaves; secondary growth in the dicot stem and root.
Chapter 6 - Cell: The Unit of Life. Cell theory; an overview of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells; the cell envelope, cell membrane and cell wall; the endomembrane system (endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, lysosomes, vacuoles); mitochondria, plastids and ribosomes; the cytoskeleton, cilia and flagella, centrosome and centrioles; the nucleus and chromosomes.
Chapter 7 - Cell Cycle and Cell Division. Phases of the cell cycle; mitosis — karyokinesis (prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase) and cytokinesis; meiosis I and meiosis II; the significance of mitosis and of meiosis.
Chapter 8 - Photosynthesis in Higher Plants. The site of photosynthesis and the photosynthetic pigments; the light reactions, photosystems and the electron transport chain; chemiosmosis and ATP synthesis; the Calvin cycle (C3 pathway); the C4 pathway; photorespiration; the factors affecting photosynthesis.
Chapter 9 - Respiration in Plants. Glycolysis; fermentation; aerobic respiration — the TCA (Krebs) cycle; the electron transport system and oxidative phosphorylation; the respiratory balance sheet; the amphibolic pathway; the respiratory quotient.
Chapter 10 - Plant Growth and Development. Growth, differentiation, dedifferentiation and redifferentiation; the phases and the rate of growth; the plant growth regulators — auxins, gibberellins, cytokinins, ethylene and abscisic acid; photoperiodism; vernalisation.
Class 12 Botany — Chapter-wise Syllabus
Chapter 11 - Sexual Reproduction in Flowering Plants. Structure of the flower; the stamen, microsporangium and pollen grain; the pistil, megasporangium (ovule) and the embryo sac; pollination — types, agents and outbreeding devices; pollen-pistil interaction; double fertilisation; post-fertilisation events — endosperm and embryo, seed and fruit formation; apomixis and polyembryony.
Chapter 12 - Principles of Inheritance and Variation. Mendel's laws of inheritance; incomplete dominance and co-dominance; multiple alleles and the inheritance of blood groups; the chromosomal theory of inheritance; linkage and recombination; sex determination; mutation; pedigree analysis; Mendelian and chromosomal genetic disorders.
Chapter 13 - Molecular Basis of Inheritance. The structure of DNA and RNA; the search for the genetic material; DNA replication; transcription; the genetic code; translation; the regulation of gene expression (the lac operon); DNA fingerprinting; the Human Genome Project.
Chapter 14 - Microbes in Human Welfare. Microbes in household products; in industrial products (fermented beverages, antibiotics, chemicals, enzymes and other bioactive molecules); in sewage treatment; in the production of biogas; as biocontrol agents and as biofertilisers.
Chapter 15 - Biotechnology: Principles and Processes. The principles of genetic engineering; the tools of recombinant DNA technology (restriction enzymes, cloning vectors, competent host); the processes of recombinant DNA technology; PCR and bioreactors; downstream processing.
Chapter 16 - Biotechnology and Its Applications. Applications in agriculture (Bt crops and pest-resistant plants); applications in medicine (recombinant insulin, gene therapy, molecular diagnosis); transgenic organisms; ethical issues, biopiracy and biosafety (the role of the GEAC).
Chapter 17 - Organisms and Populations. The organism and its environment; the major abiotic factors and the responses to them; adaptations; population attributes (density, natality, mortality, age distribution); population growth models (exponential and logistic); population interactions — mutualism, competition, predation, parasitism and commensalism.
Chapter 18 - Ecosystem. The structure and function of an ecosystem; productivity (primary and secondary); decomposition; energy flow through food chains and food webs; ecological pyramids; nutrient cycling (the carbon and phosphorus cycles).
Chapter 19 - Biodiversity and Conservation. The levels and patterns of biodiversity; the importance of species diversity; the loss of biodiversity and its causes; biodiversity conservation — in-situ methods (biosphere reserves, national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and biodiversity hotspots) and ex-situ methods.
How This Course Is Organized
From Chapter 2 onward, every chapter maps to one NCERT chapter and is built for active practice. Each chapter has six sections: two Easy, two Medium, one Hard, and one PYQ (previous-year questions). The Easy and Medium sets open with a tight NCERT concept recap and then single-correct MCQs with full explanations; the Hard set pushes into assertion-reason, match-the-column and fine-NCERT-detail items; and the PYQ set is built from real NEET past-year questions (2018 onward), each tagged with its year. Because NEET Botany is overwhelmingly NCERT-line, every recap and answer stays anchored to the current rationalised NCERT Class 11 and 12 textbooks.
Chapter numbering follows the NCERT/NEET sequence: Chapter 1 is this syllabus, Chapter 2 is The Living World, Chapter 3 is Biological Classification, and so on through the ten Class 11 chapters and then the nine Class 12 chapters. Read the NCERT text line-by-line first, use the Easy and Medium sets to lock in and connect the facts, and treat the Hard and PYQ sets as your exam-readiness check.
[NEET Tip] The single highest-return habit in Biology is re-reading NCERT until every line feels familiar — a large share of NEET Botany questions is lifted almost word-for-word from the textbook, including the small print under diagrams and in the summary boxes.