Eligibility for NEST 2022

Age Criteria

The applicant date of birth must not be before August 2000. There will be a total of five years of relaxation for SC/ST candidates. 

Educational Qualification

Candidates should have passed 10+2 (plus-two) in any stream from a recognised institution located across India. Applicants appearing for the final exam with regards to qualfiying degree can also apply. However, they should have passed the exam and produce required documents by the time of admission.

Compulsory subjects

Applicants must have mathematics as one of the complusory subjects in plius-two course. The other compulsory subjects are physics, chemistry. Candidates aiming for biology or biology oriented subjects must have  biology (botany, zoology) or life sciences as compulsory subjects in the plus-two.

Pass marks

Applicants must have a minimum of 60% marks in aggregate in 10+2 final exam for general category  students. The same is 55% marks in aggregate for SC/ST students. 

Exam pattern for NEST 2022

Candidates have to answer questions in multiple choice questions and multiple select questions. The exam will be conducted in online format as a computer based test. The total marks for the test are 200. There will be five sections in the exam and one is general section.

All the sections are for 50 marks each and general section is for 30 marks. More information about the exam pattern is provided below for the sake of the candidates in a tabular format:

Marks & Questions distribution

Marking scheme