Every JEE Main aspirant plans revision around the official NTA syllabus. That is the right starting point, but it is not the whole story. When we went through every JEE Main paper of 2024, 2025 and 2026 question by question, we found that a steady share of questions came from topics the syllabus does not print at all.
We have put the full analysis into a free 6-page PDF, Beyond the Syllabus: JEE Main 2024–26. This post gives you the key findings and tells you how to get it.
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The numbers at a glance
- 4,650 questions read: all 58 shifts of JEE Main 2024–26 (1,550 per subject).
- 212 questions (4.6%) were set on topics the NTA syllabus does not list.
- That is 3–4 such questions in every JEE Main paper, or roughly one question in every 22.
- In a 300-mark paper, that is 12–16 marks. That's enough to move your percentile a long way.
Which subject goes furthest beyond the syllabus?
| Subject | Off-syllabus questions (2024–26) | Share of that subject's questions |
|---|---|---|
| Mathematics | 100 | 6.5% |
| Chemistry | 83 | 5.4% |
| Physics | 29 | 1.9% |
Mathematics is the heaviest. Physics is the cleanest, since NTA stays close to its own syllabus there, with one big exception covered below.
The topics that carried the most marks
14 topics that are not printed in the syllabus were each asked three times or more in 2024–26. Together they account for 199 of the 212 off-syllabus questions. The top of the list:
| # | Topic | Subject | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | p-block compounds | Chemistry | 24 | 13 | 15 | 52 |
| 2 | Trigonometric equations | Maths | 14 | 12 | 17 | 43 |
| 3 | Summation of series, telescoping, AGP | Maths | 12 | 12 | 11 | 35 |
| 4 | Redox titration / n-factor | Chemistry | 6 | 4 | 4 | 14 |
| 5 | Rolling motion | Physics | 5 | 5 | 2 | 12 |
| 6 | Tangents and normals | Maths | 4 | 5 | 0 | 9 |
The full ranked list of all 14, with what each topic's questions actually ask, is in the PDF.
Three things the data makes clear
- Three topics carry most of it. p-block compounds, trigonometric equations and summation of series alone account for 130 questions, three-fifths of all off-syllabus questions. Every one of them was asked in every year.
- It is not fading. Trigonometric equations rose from 14 questions to 17. Binomial distribution / Bernoulli trials had none in 2024–25, then three in 2026.
- One exception. Tangents and normals came 9 times in 2024–25 and not once in 2026. Revise it, but last.
Physics: rolling motion is the one to watch
Rolling motion is not in the Rotational Motion unit of the syllabus at all, yet it was asked 12 times in three years. Radioactivity and half-life have also come back since 2025. Here is a real question from the papers (JEE Main 2025, 24 January, Shift 2):
A solid sphere is rolling without slipping on a horizontal plane. The ratio of the linear kinetic energy of the centre of mass of the sphere and its rotational kinetic energy is:
(A) 3/4 (B) 4/3 (C) 5/2 (D) 2/5
Try it first. The answer, with the one-line solution, is in the PDF, along with real questions on trigonometric equations, p-block compounds, summation of series and redox titration.
What was never asked
The report also lists topics that are outside the syllabus and were asked zero times in 2024–26, for example the Doppler effect, transistors, the plane in 3-D geometry, Cramer's rule, and heights and distances. For JEE Main these are your lowest priority. Keep them for JEE Advanced.
How to use this in your revision
- Add the top six to your plan: p-block compounds, trigonometric equations, summation of series, redox titration, rolling motion, and tangents and normals.
- Solve the real questions first. The 2024–26 questions on each topic show exactly the depth NTA asks for.
- Spend less on the zero-asked topics for JEE Main.
You can practise every one of these chapters with real JEE Main previous-year questions, full solutions and the actual exam interface on AcadXL's free PYQ platform.
How we counted
We compared every question against the official NTA JEE Main 2025 syllabus (unchanged for 2026). A topic counts as off-syllabus only if the syllabus text never mentions it. We then read every question of all 58 shifts of 2024–26 and counted only questions whose main idea is that topic. 2024 papers had 30 questions per subject and 2025–26 had 25, so the yearly counts are not directly comparable.
Get the free PDF
The full report is 6 pages: the ranked priority list, a subject-by-subject breakdown with yearly counts, real questions with answers, and the zero-asked lists. It is free for personal study.
Download “Beyond the Syllabus: JEE Main 2024–26” (free PDF) →
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