The NEET UG 2026 exam took place on May 3, 2026, across 551 cities in India and 14 cities abroad. This year, candidates faced a significant increase in conceptual questions in the Physics section, which tested their depth of understanding.
More than 22 lakh candidates registered for the exam. Candidates rated the difficulty of the question paper as moderate, indicating a challenging yet manageable experience.
Key facts about the NEET UG 2026 exam:
- The provisional answer key will be released on the official NTA portal at neet.nta.nic.in.
- Candidates can download the answer key PDF using their registration number and date of birth.
- If candidates wish to raise objections against the answer key, they must pay a fee of Rs 200 per question.
The scoring system awards 4 marks for each correct answer while deducting -1 mark for incorrect answers. If any question is deemed incorrect, all candidates receive an additional +4 marks, regardless of their attempts.
Candidates are advised to avoid unofficial answer keys circulating on social media and rely on the official NTA updates. The NTA will review any objections before releasing the final answer key.
The NEET UG 2026 exam followed the traditional NTA pattern, although there were specific shifts in weightage this year. Notably, Biology remained largely NCERT-centric.
