CUET Syllabus, Exam Pattern, Eligibility, Important Dates

Five marks a question puts every paper at 250 marks, and 60 minutes for 50 questions gives you 1 minute 12 seconds each. The penalty is a fifth of what a correct answer pays, so five wrong answers cancel one right one. Most objective papers in India charge a quarter or a third.

The papers are independent. Take five subjects and you sit five of them, possibly on different days and in different shifts, and you get a separate score for each.

Defective questions

• More than one option correct: +5 to everyone who marked any of the correct options.
• No option correct, or the question is wrong, or it is dropped: +5 to every candidate who appeared, attempted or not.

Both rules are applied after the answer key challenge closes, not before.

Medium

The paper is set in 13 Indian languages: English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. You pick one in the application form, you cannot change it later, and you must attempt the paper in the medium you picked. Each question appears in English and in your language, and the English version prevails if the two differ. In 2026 NTA administered 996 question papers across the 13 languages, carrying 55,055 questions, drawn from 332 unique papers with 18,160 unique questions.

The NTA Score

Because a subject runs across several shifts with different papers, raw marks are converted to an NTA Score so shifts are comparable. The compilation procedure is an appendix to the Information Bulletin. The score holds for that academic year only.

PwBD candidates

Compensatory time of 20 minutes for each hour, so 20 minutes on a 60-minute paper. UDID details are verified from the DePwD portal; candidates without a UDID card upload a disability certificate in one of the formats the bulletin carries as appendices.

The subject-wise syllabus is published separately at cuet.nta.nic.in under the CUET (UG) syllabus page. The bulletin points to it instead of reproducing it.

So a domain paper has a published, finite syllabus you already own: the NCERT books. And a language paper is not a grammar paper. It tests how fast you read an unfamiliar passage and how wide your vocabulary is, which is a different skill from what a school language exam rewards.

The 37 subjects, and which five to pick

Thirteen Indian languages, twenty-three domain subjects and one General Aptitude Test. The full list is an appendix to the Information Bulletin and is also on the CUET website.

CUET itself does not check your Class 12 combination, so the five are yours to choose. The university does check. Each programme prescribes which CUET subjects it will accept, and five subjects that no programme you want accepts is a wasted exam and a wasted fee. Read the prospectus of the universities you are aiming at before you fill the form, not after.

Qualifying examinations NTA accepts

• The final examination of the 10+2 system from a recognised Central or State board.
• Intermediate or two year Pre-University examination of a recognised board or university.
• The final examination of the two year course of the Joint Services Wing of the National Defence Academy.
• The NIOS Senior Secondary School Examination with a minimum of five subjects.
• Any examination recognised as equivalent to 10+2 by the Association of Indian Universities, the UGC or an agency notified by the Ministry of Education.
• The Higher Secondary Certificate Vocational Examination.
• A diploma of at least three years recognised by AICTE or a State board of technical education.
• GCE at Advanced level, the Cambridge High School Certificate or the International Baccalaureate Diploma.

Eligibility for the test is wide enough that it filters almost nobody. The real filter is the prospectus of the university you want, which sets the programmes and seats, age and qualifying-exam rules, minimum marks and relaxations, reservation, admission procedure and the CUET subjects that programme requires.

Reservation

• Only candidates on the Central List of Other Backward Classes, at ncbc.nic.in, may enter OBC. A State-list OBC candidate who is not on that list must apply as General or Unreserved.
• EWS follows the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment memorandum of 17 January 2019 and the Ministry of Education memorandum of the same date on reservation for the Economically Weaker Section in Central Educational Institutions.
• Reservation in admission is applied by the university, under its own rules. CUET records your category; it does not allot a seat.

PwBD candidates

There is no bar on eligibility. Compensatory time is 20 minutes an hour, UDID details are verified from the DePwD portal, and the bulletin carries the certificate formats as appendices: physical limitation in an examinee to write, a specified disability under Section 2(s) of the RPwD Act 2016 but not under Section 2(r), that is under 40 per cent disability with difficulty in writing, and the undertaking for using one's own scribe.

CUET does not select anyone. It produces a score, and the universities select on it.

1. Register and choose up to five subjects, after checking which subjects the programmes you want will accept.
2. Sit each subject as a separate 50-question, 60-minute computer based paper, on whichever days and shifts your admit card gives.
3. Provisional answer keys go up with your question paper and your recorded responses, and a window opens to challenge them.
4. Final answer keys, and the result computed on those.
5. An NTA Score for each subject, downloaded as a score card.
6. Each university prepares its own merit list and runs its own counselling.

The challenge window is the only redress

NTA shows you the provisional keys, your paper and what the machine recorded you as answering, and invites challenges within a stated window. The result is then processed on the final keys. After that:

• No grievance about the answer keys is entertained once the result is declared.
• No re-evaluation and no re-checking of the result, and no correspondence on the point.
• No score card is dispatched. You download it.

Use the window while it is open, because nothing comes after it.

What the score card will not do for you

It carries no All India Rank, because there is no national merit list. Each of the 244 participating universities builds its own list from the subjects it requires, applies its own weightages, reservation and additional criteria, and may also demand medical fitness and verification of original documents. Two universities can rank the same two candidates in opposite orders off the same score card. For anything to do with admission, the bulletin sends you to the website of the university you applied to.

CUET (UG) is an admission test, so no pay attaches to it. What a score buys is consideration for an undergraduate seat, and nothing more: the seat, the fee and any scholarship are the university's business.

Minimum marks, relaxations, reservation, counselling and the cut-off are set by each university for each programme, and the same CUET score is worth different things at different places.

Applications are online only, at cuet.nta.nic.in. Nothing, corrections included, is accepted by post, fax, email, WhatsApp or by hand.

Net banking, card or UPI, with processing charges and GST on top. The confirmation page appears only on successful payment, so no confirmation page means the transaction failed and you pay again; duplicates are reconciled and refunded after the final result. Otherwise no fee is refunded under any circumstances.

Four steps

Register, which issues the Application Number used for every later login. Fill the form: personal and educational details, university and programme selection, test papers, examination cities, uploads. Pay. Print the confirmation page.

Photograph and uploads

A live photograph is captured during the application, by webcam or by scanning a QR code on a phone. Light background, 80 per cent face including the ears, no mask. The scanned photograph follows the same rule, in colour on white.

Three things cancel the attempt: a second application form from the same candidate; uploading someone else's photograph, signature or certificate, or tampering with an admit card, result or score card; and not following the instructions, which the bulletin says brings summary disqualification.

The National Testing Agency, set up by the Ministry of Education under the Societies Registration Act 1860, conducts CUET (UG) on behalf of the Ministry and the University Grants Commission, for undergraduate admission to Central Universities and to the other universities, institutions, organisations and autonomous colleges that take part.

They are a mix of Central, State, Deemed-to-be and Private universities. Every Central University under the Ministry of Education is in, and the list of them is an appendix to the Information Bulletin. The rest participate by choice, which is why the number moves year to year.

Each one decides for itself which CUET subjects a programme will accept, what weightage to give them, and how its counselling runs. The institution you want is therefore the first thing to settle and the prospectus the first thing to read, before the subject choice is made.

You choose your examination cities in the application form, from a list that runs to eight pages as an appendix to the Information Bulletin. The city is announced later on cuet.nta.nic.in, ahead of the admit card; neither date is fixed in the bulletin.

The fifteen international cities in 2026 were Abu Dhabi, Doha, Dubai, Munich, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait City, Lagos, Manama, Muscat, Riyadh, Sharjah, Singapore, West Java and Washington. Sitting at one of them costs ₹4,500 for up to three subjects.

Each subject is its own 60-minute sitting, so five subjects can mean five trips to the centre on different days. Two short chapters of the bulletin govern the hall itself, one on barred items and the dress code and one on unfair means and breach of examination rules, and a seven-page appendix gives the Computer Based Test guidelines. Read all three before the first paper; they are enforced.

Only three of those are fixed in advance: the application window, the fee deadline a day after it, and the three-day correction window. The examination itself is given as a tentative range and fixed per candidate per subject on the admit card. Everything from the city intimation onward is announced on cuet.nta.nic.in, which makes that page the one to watch from February.

Dates move. In 2026 NTA issued a rescheduling notice, and then a second one for candidates affected by a technical glitch in Shift I on 30 May, whose papers were held on 6 and 7 June on fresh admit cards. Across 35 shifts and 19 days, re-running one shift is routine.

One date that does not move: the NTA Score is valid for admission to that academic year only.

Two separate announcements, both made only on cuet.nta.nic.in: first the city of examination, then the admit card. The Information Bulletin fixes neither, giving both as to be announced later on the website, so the site is the only channel worth watching for them.

The admit card is what tells you the date, the shift and the centre for each paper you registered for, which matters once you have taken up to five subjects spread across 35 shifts.

A disrupted shift is not a lost attempt. In 2026, candidates hit by a technical glitch in Shift I on 30 May were rescheduled, issued fresh admit cards and examined on 6 and 7 June. Tampering with an admit card, on the other hand, is treated as unfair means and runs to cancellation of the result.

Four stages separate the last shift from a score card. NTA displays the provisional answer keys with your question paper and your recorded responses, and invites challenges; the final answer keys follow; the result and NTA Scores are computed on those; and the score card is downloaded from cuet.nta.nic.in. For 2026 the final keys, the result and the list of toppers all came on 23 June 2026, about three weeks after the last paper.

What you get is an NTA Score for each subject you sat, good for that academic year only. No rank, no national merit list, no qualifying mark.

And nothing after it. No grievance about the answer keys is entertained once the result is declared, there is no re-evaluation and no re-checking, and no score card is dispatched by post.

CUET (UG) has no cut-off. NTA publishes no qualifying mark, no minimum percentile and no national merit list, because the exam does not produce one: it reports an NTA Score per subject and stops.

What decides a seat is each university's own cut-off, for each programme and each category, published by that university with its merit list after the CUET result. With 244 participating universities and many programmes apiece, there is no single figure and never was one. Any number offered as "the CUET cut-off" is either one university's programme-wise figure from one year or invented. Look it up on the site of the university you are applying to.

Settle the five subjects before you study any of them

CUET will let you take any five of the thirty-seven. The university will not: each programme names the CUET subjects it accepts, and a paper no programme you want asks for costs you a fee and a day for nothing. Pick the universities, read their prospectuses, list what they require, and only then register. The bulletin puts this first among its own instructions, ahead of anything about the exam.

The marking pays you to attempt

• +5 and -1 means five wrong answers cancel one right one.
• A blind guess among four options is worth plus 0.5 marks on average. Eliminate one option and it is plus 1.0.
• So a blank is rarely your best move. That inverts the habit a quarter-mark or third-mark penalty teaches, and it is the single change most candidates need to make.

Practise to the clock, one subject at a time

Fifty questions in sixty minutes is 1 minute 12 seconds each. Each subject is its own paper on its own day, so practise them as separate hour-long sittings, scored out of 250 on the real marking, and on a computer rather than on paper.

Where the study effort goes

• Domain papers: the NCERT books. That is the prescribed syllabus, so the reading list is already finite and already on your shelf.
• Language papers: read, do not drill grammar. Speed on unfamiliar passages and vocabulary are what is scored.
• General Aptitude Test: go wide, not deep. Current affairs and general knowledge alongside school-level arithmetic and reasoning.

Two things to get right outside the hall

Choose your medium carefully at registration, because it cannot be changed and you must sit the paper in it. And when the provisional keys go up with your recorded responses, check them and challenge what is wrong. Once the result is out, no answer key grievance is entertained and nothing is re-checked.

NTA publishes no sample papers, model papers or mock tests for CUET (UG). What it does release is better: after the exam, every candidate is shown the question paper they actually sat, with their own recorded responses, next to the provisional answer key and before the result.

Those, the final keys, the subject-wise syllabus and the Information Bulletin all sit on cuet.nta.nic.in. The keys and recorded responses go up a few weeks after the last shift; in 2026 the final keys and the result came together on 23 June.

Judging material sold for this exam: if it is not fifty compulsory questions in an hour on a computer, scored +5 and -1, it is not modelling the current scheme, and anything quoting a CUET cut-off has made it up.

• cuet.nta.nic.in – the official site and the only channel. Bulletin, subject-wise syllabus, public notices, city intimation, admit card, answer key challenge, result and score card.
• Information Bulletin, CUET (UG) 2026 (PDF, 96 pages) – the governing document. Dates, fee, scheme, eligibility, reservation, PwBD provisions, unfair means, dress code, and appendices listing the Central Universities, the subjects, the cities, the CBT guidelines and the NTA Score procedure.
• Result press release, 23 June 2026 (PDF) – 2026 and 2025 side by side, category and gender splits, 244 universities.
• Conduct press release, 7 June 2026 (PDF) – 321 cities, 868 centres in India, 15 abroad, 19 days, 35 shifts.
• ncbc.nic.in – the Central List of Other Backward Classes. Not on it, and you cannot claim OBC in CUET.

Who conducts CUET (UG)?

The National Testing Agency, for the Ministry of Education and the University Grants Commission.

Which universities accept it?

Every Central University, plus participating State, Deemed-to-be and Private universities and autonomous colleges. 244 used CUET (UG) scores in 2026.

How many subjects can I choose?

Up to five out of 37: 13 Indian languages, 23 domain subjects and the General Aptitude Test.

Can I choose a subject I did not study in Class 12?

Yes, as far as CUET is concerned. The university decides which CUET subjects it accepts for each programme, so check the prospectus first.

What is the pattern?

50 compulsory questions per subject paper in 60 minutes, computer based only, 250 marks a paper.

What is the marking scheme?

+5 correct, -1 incorrect, 0 unanswered. Five wrong answers cancel one right one.

Should I guess?

Usually yes. A blind guess among four options averages plus 0.5 marks, plus 1.0 with one option ruled out.

What happens if a question is dropped?

Every candidate who appeared gets +5, attempted or not. If more than one option turns out correct, +5 goes to everyone who marked any of them.

In how many languages is the paper set?

Thirteen: English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Each question appears in English too, and the English version prevails if the two differ.

Can I change the medium later?

No. It is fixed when you apply, and you must sit the paper in it.

Is there an age limit?

Not for CUET. The university may have one.

What is the fee?

Up to three subjects: ₹1,000 General, ₹900 OBC-NCL and EWS, ₹800 SC, ST, PwD, PwBD and third gender. Each extra subject is ₹400, ₹375 or ₹350. Outside India, ₹4,500 and ₹1,800.

I am OBC under my State list. Which category do I choose?

General or Unreserved. Only the Central List of Other Backward Classes at ncbc.nic.in counts.

Can I get the fee back?

No, under any circumstances. Duplicate payments from a failed confirmation page are reconciled and refunded after the final result.

What is the CUET cut-off?

There is none. Each university publishes its own programme-wise cut-offs with its own merit list.

What is an NTA Score?

Raw marks from different shifts converted so they are comparable, by a procedure published as a bulletin appendix. Valid for that academic year only.

Can I ask for re-evaluation?

No. There is no re-evaluation and no re-checking, and no answer key grievance is heard after the result. The challenge window is the only redress.

Will my score card be posted to me?

No score card is dispatched. Download it from cuet.nta.nic.in.

Does appearing in CUET guarantee admission?

No. Merely appearing confers no right to admission anywhere. Selection depends on the university's criteria, its merit list, medical fitness and document checks.

Do PwBD candidates get extra time?

Yes, 20 minutes an hour, so 20 minutes on a 60-minute paper.

What happened with the technical glitch in 2026?

Candidates affected in Shift I on 30 May 2026 were rescheduled, given fresh admit cards and examined on 6 and 7 June. The result for the whole exam still came on 23 June 2026.

How big is CUET (UG)?

In 2026, 15,68,867 registered and 11,64,098 appeared, sitting 67,56,327 subject tests in 12,906 distinct combinations, over 19 days and 35 shifts at 868 centres in India and 15 abroad.