UGC NET Exam 2019, Details & Duration

University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test, commonly known as, UGC NET, is a National level exam to determine eligibility for college and university level lectureship and for award of Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) for Indian nationals. The aim of conducting this test is to select eligible candidates for the post of Assistant Professor or both Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and Assistant Professor in Indian universities and colleges. UGC NET exam is held twice a year – once in December and the second time in June. The NET scores are accepted in 23 colleges all over India. The qualifying marks in UGC NET exam for General and ST/SC/PWD/OBC are given below separately, for both Paper-I and Paper-II:

UGC NET has gone through some changes in recent times. Earlier CBSE used to conduct the UGC NET exam until the recent announcement by the Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development.

According to the ministry, from now on, the UGC NET exam will be conducted by the newly formed National Testing Agency (NTA). And with the launch of NTA, the following changes have been introduced in the National Eligibility Test.

• Till July 2018, candidates used to write the UGC NET exam with pen and paper. However, as per the new changes, this exam will be conducted as a Computer-Based Test (CBT) only.

• A new category of candidates, i.e. Transgender has been introduced from December 2018 session onwards. As per rules, the same relaxation, subject wise cut-offs and benefits will be applied upon as SC/ST/PwD/OBC–NCL in terms of examination fees, eligibility and age limit.

• For JRF applicants the age limit has been raised to 30 years, from the previous age limit of 28 years as on December 1, 2018.

• The application fee for UGC NET has been reduced for all categories of students.

UGC NET new exam pattern

1. Candidates used to get a break lasting 30 minutes in the December session in between Paper I and Paper II. But now, from June 2019 session, there will be no break between the papers.
2. Earlier, UGC NET exam included three papers, but now it will comprise only of two papers – Paper 1 and Paper 2.
3. The total number of questions will now be 150 (50 in Paper 1, and 100 in Paper II)
4. As per the new pattern of UGC NET, Paper 2 will cover both the syllabi of what used to be Paper 2 and Paper 3 earlier.

In UGC NET exam, candidates have to attend two papers Paper I and Paper II in a total of 3 hours. These papers which consist of only objective type questions are conducted on the same day in two separate sessions via Online i.e. Computer Based Mode. Each candidate is allocated a desktop with a preinstalled software, specially created for the examination.

Type of Questions

• The questions in both papers are objective in nature.

• Every question has 4 choices as the questions in UGC NET (December 2018) are of Multiple Choice type (MCQs).

• Candidates are required to select one option as their answer.

• The duration of Paper 1 is 60 minutes (1 hour) with 50 questions and that of Paper 2 is 120 minutes (2 hours) with 100 questions in total.

• All the questions are compulsory.

UGC NET Marking Scheme

1. A uniform marking system is followed in the exam i.e. for Paper 1 and 2, each correct answer carries + 2 marks.
2. As per the revised exam pattern of UGC NET Exam, there is no negative marking for any unanswered or incorrect answer.