What is inside

All ten units of Paper 1. Every question explained.

Paper 1 is common to every UGC NET subject — the same syllabus whether you sit Commerce, English, History, Education or anything else. Here is exactly what the bank contains.

Sessions covered: Dec 2018 Dec 2023 Jun 2024 Aug 2024 Sep 2024 Jan 2025 Jun 2025 Dec 2025 Jan 2026 Jun 2026
4,249Questions, all explained
10Units of the syllabus
639Topics & subtopics
14Question formats
Unit by unit

Where the questions actually are.

NTA draws roughly five marks from every unit in every paper. These counts are what the bank holds for each — question, explanation, wrong-option analysis and frequency data.

UnitSyllabus areaQuestionsTopicsEvery paper
01 Teaching AptitudeLearner characteristics, methods, evaluation systems 35483~5 marks
02 Research AptitudeMethods, sampling, thesis writing, research ethics 39062~5 marks
03 ComprehensionUnseen passages with inference and vocabulary questions 430—~5 marks
04 CommunicationTypes, barriers, mass media, classroom communication 41595~5 marks
05 Mathematical Reasoning & AptitudeSeries, ratios, percentages, number puzzles, coding 37364~5 marks
06 Logical ReasoningIndian logic, syllogism, square of opposition, fallacies 47348~5 marks
07 Data InterpretationTables, graphs, pie charts, data sufficiency sets 46417~5 marks
08 Information & Communication TechnologyFundamentals, internet, e-governance, digital initiatives 49274~5 marks
09 People, Development & EnvironmentPollution, disasters, energy, sustainable development 43198~5 marks
10 Higher Education SystemInstitutions, governance, policy, historical evolution 42797~5 marks
Total across all ten units 4,249639
Question formats

Tagged by shape, not just by topic.

Match-the-list behaves nothing like assertion-reason. Practise the format you keep losing marks on.

1,538Direct MCQSingle fact or definition
441Match List I & IIFour-pair matching
441Multi-statementChoose which are correct
373Passage-basedComprehension sets
312Data interpretationHanging off a table or chart
273SequenceArrange in correct order
259Fill in the blankOne or more gaps
157NegativeWhich is NOT true
122OrderingRank or prioritise
106Two-statementBoth / neither / only one
87CalculationNumeric working required
71Assertion & ReasonA and R relationship
The standard, in full

This is what every explanation looks like.

Not a summary of the answer. The actual working, the trap, the wrong options one by one, and what to do when the paper itself is broken.

Unit 6 · Coding-decoding · Jan 2025 · 08-01 Shift 2 · Q.18 Free sample
In a certain code, the following sentences have been coded as shown. What is the code for ‘walking’?
Arjun is walking to school  →  NA, SI, AG, DR, VI
Krishna is speaking to Arjun  →  KA, TK, DR, SI, NA
School is within walking distance of Krishna  →  VI, SI, NIH, AG, LE, KA, OP
1TK
2VIThe trap
3AGNTA key
4SI

The working

Start with what the intersections give. ‘Is’ appears in all three sentences and SI is the only code in all three, so is = SI. Sentences 2 and 3 share Krishna and is, with codes KA and SI, so Krishna = KA. Sentences 1 and 3 share three words — is, walking, school — and three codes: SI, AG and VI. Removing SI leaves AG and VI for walking and school. Reading each of those two sentences in order, the codes line up with the words as written, which puts walking at AG and school at VI.

⚑ This item is underdetermined — and here is why that matters

Set intersection alone does not settle this question. Walking and school occur in exactly the same two sentences and never apart, so no amount of intersecting can separate AG from VI — options 2 and 3 are both consistent with the substitution logic. The key resolves it by position, yet sentence 2’s codes are not in word order. So the paper applies its own rule selectively. In the hall: solve as far as the data allows, then take the keyed option — do not assume you have missed a step.

Why the other options fail

1TK appears only in sentence 2, so it codes ‘speaking’ — a word absent from the other two sentences.
2VI is a genuine candidate on the substitution logic alone, and is ruled out only by the positional reading above. It is the code for school.
4SI is the code common to all three sentences, so it belongs to ‘is’ — the only word common to all three.

Memory hook

When two words always travel together across every sentence, their codes cannot be separated by intersection. If the question still demands an answer, the paper is relying on code order — check whether the listed codes track the word order.
How often NTA asks this
Coding-decoding, as a topic22 papers
Substitution codes across sentences4 papers
Unit 6 share of every Paper 1~5 marks
How you practise it

Four ways into the same bank.

▣

By topic

Pick a single topic — square of opposition, sampling, pollution — and drill only that, in one sitting, with the frequency data telling you whether it is worth your time.

⏲

By exam session

Sit a full past paper as it appeared, timed, in order. The closest thing to the real thing short of the hall itself.

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Repeated questions only

The questions NTA has asked more than once, or rebuilt from the same template. The highest-value revision set on the site, and nobody else has it.

✗

My mistakes

Everything you have got wrong, hardest first, resurfacing until you stop missing it.

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