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Old JEE Main question banks are full of questions on topics that are no longer in the syllabus. If you practise from them without checking, you spend hours on chapters that will not be tested. If you skip too much, you may drop something JEE Advanced still asks. This post compares the official syllabi line by line so you know exactly what changed.
What changed in the JEE Main syllabus, and when?
NTA publishes a full syllabus every year rather than a list of deletions. The Syllabus for JEE (Main) 2023 was the last long version. The Syllabus for JEE (Main) 2024, released in November 2023, was the first shorter one, and the Syllabus for JEE (Main) 2026 keeps the same cut-down structure. Mathematics went from 16 units to 14, physics from 21 to 20, and chemistry from 28 units to 20.
The lists below come from reading the 2023 and 2026 documents side by side. Always check the syllabus NTA releases for your own exam year, since small wording changes happen every cycle.
Which maths topics were removed?
Mathematical induction (a full unit in 2023).
Mathematical reasoning: statements, tautology, contradiction, converse and contrapositive (a full unit in 2023).
Heights and distances: the 2023 trigonometry unit listed it; the 2026 unit lists only identities, trigonometric functions and inverse trigonometric functions.
Planes in 3D geometry: in 2023 the unit included "equations of a line and a plane in different forms" and coplanar lines. The 2026 unit stops at lines, skew lines and the shortest distance between them.
Scalar and vector triple products are gone from vector algebra.
Bernoulli trials and the binomial distribution are gone from probability. Bayes' theorem and probability distributions of a random variable remain.
Which physics topics were removed?
Communication systems (modulation, bandwidth, sky and space waves) was a full unit in 2023 and is absent in 2026.
Doppler effect in sound and free, forced and damped oscillations and resonance are no longer in the oscillations and waves unit. Beats and standing waves remain.
Physics lost the least. Units and measurements, including significant figures and error analysis, is still Unit 1.
Which chemistry topics were removed?
Chemistry took the largest cut. These 2023 units have no counterpart in 2026:
States of matter, which covered gas laws, real gases and the solid state (unit cells, packing, Bragg's law).
Surface chemistry (adsorption, catalysis, colloids).
General principles and processes of isolation of metals.
Hydrogen, and s-block elements.
Environmental chemistry.
Polymers, and chemistry in everyday life.
The first unit also lost its lines on precision, accuracy, significant figures, SI units and dimensional analysis. Some ideas survive elsewhere: the physics unit on kinetic theory of gases still covers the equation of state, RMS speed and degrees of freedom, and the 2026 practical chemistry unit still lists preparing lyophilic and lyophobic sols.
Does a removed topic still matter for JEE Advanced?
Yes, often. The JEE (Advanced) 2026 information brochure lists, among others, "Elementary concepts of adsorption", colloids, polymers, "Isolation of Metals", alkali and alkaline earth metals, the "Doppler effect (in sound)", "vector triple products", and in three dimensions the "equation of a plane" and "distance of a point from a plane". Our post on how JEE Main and JEE Advanced differ explains why the two papers reward different preparation.
So the right plan depends on your target:
JEE Main only (for NITs, IIITs and state colleges): you can skip the removed topics.
JEE Advanced as well: study the Advanced syllabus as your master list, and treat the Main cuts as a guide to what will not appear in January and April.
How do you clean up an old question bank?
Print the current syllabus for your exam year and keep it next to your question bank.
Before a practice set, cross out questions on removed topics if you are preparing for Main only. Questions on planes, triple products, binomial distribution, Doppler effect, colloids and unit cells are the common ones in older books.
Mark mixed questions carefully. A 3D question may use a line (in syllabus) and a plane (not in Main) together. Solve only the line part, or skip it.
For Advanced aspirants, move removed-from-Main questions to a separate weekly set so they do not crowd your Main mock practice.
Use the current NCERT books as your base text. Our guide to reading NCERT chemistry for JEE Main shows how the 20 chemistry units map onto the current books.
What is a sensible weekly routine?
Two timed sets of 25 questions drawn only from current-syllabus chapters.
One error review where you tag every mistake as concept, method or careless.
For Advanced aspirants, one extra set of 10 questions from topics that are in Advanced but not Main.
When a question type stumps you, it helps to see the reasoning, not just the key. The Fermi Problem Library has worked problems with a step-by-step solver that explains the reasoning rather than printing an answer, so you can check why a method works before you add the question to your set.
Download this year's syllabus PDF from jeemain.nta.nic.in today and cross out the removed topics in your question bank before your next practice set.
