IIT JAM Syllabus, Exam Pattern, Eligibility, Important Dates

60 questions, 100 marks, three hours

Computer-based, questions shown in random order. All three sections are compulsory.

Only Section A, half the paper, carries a penalty. An unattempted question scores zero anywhere. In Section B a partly right answer scores nothing.

On screen

• MCQ and MSQ answers are clicked with the mouse.
• NAT answers go in on a virtual numeric keypad; the keyboard is disabled.
• A virtual calculator is provided. Your own isn't allowed.
• A scribble pad is given for rough work. Write your name and registration number on it and hand it back.
• The test ends automatically on time.

Sessions

Two papers must come from different sessions: Mathematics with Mathematical Statistics or Physics works, Chemistry with Biotechnology works, two forenoon papers don't.

PwD candidates get one hour extra per paper (finishing at 13:30 or 18:30), added automatically, if requested on the prescribed form at registration.

The full syllabus for all seven papers is Annexure I of the Information Brochure, also on the JAM site's Syllabus page. Each is a proper undergraduate syllabus several pages long, so work from it, not a summary.

Biotechnology (BT)

The broadest paper, covering Biology and Biotechnology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics in six sections:

1. General Biology: cell biology, biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, and evolution and ecology
2. Microbial, Plant and Animal Biotechnology: microbiology including fermentation and bioreactors, plant biology including tissue culture and transgenic plants, animal biology including immunology, development and mammalian cell culture
3. Biotechniques: chromatography, centrifugation, electrophoresis, ELISA and blotting, microscopy, DNA cloning and PCR, sequencing, computational biology, spectroscopy, calorimetry, crystallography and flow cytometry
4. Chemistry at 10+2+3 level
5. Mathematics at 10+2 level, including probability and statistics
6. Physics at 10+2 level

Three of the six sections are school level, so a candidate from any science background can attempt it.

The other six

Chemistry (CY), Economics (EN), Geology (GG), Mathematics (MA), Mathematical Statistics (MS) and Physics (PH) are each set at the level of a three-year bachelor's degree in that subject. Sitting two papers means preparing two full syllabi, so pick a second paper that genuinely overlaps.

You can sit JAM if you've completed a bachelor's degree or will appear in its final exam in the exam year. There's no minimum percentage, no age limit, and it's open to Indian and foreign nationals.

The real conditions come at admission

• Your degree must be finished before the admitting institute's admission date, with proof submitted on its timeline.
• Each programme sets its own Eligibility Requirements (ERs) and Minimum Educational Qualifications (MEQs), listed in Annexure II of the brochure and finalised in the Admission Brochure.
• Only the admitting institute checks MEQs and ERs. The organising institute won't answer questions about them.

Physical fitness

At admission you may need a fitness certificate from a registered doctor or a test by the institute's medical board, and admission can be cancelled if you're found unfit. Some programmes add their own rules: IIT (ISM) Dhanbad, for example, bars candidates with colour blindness or uni-ocularity from its geology programme and needs PwD candidates to walk in the field unassisted.

Category certificates

OBC-NCL, EWS, SC, ST and PwD certificates must be in the brochure's formats from the listed authorities. OBC-NCL and EWS certificates must be dated on or after 1 April of the year before the exam; without a valid one you're treated as General. PwD candidates must give a UDID number.

An admit card doesn't settle eligibility. Permission to appear can be withdrawn if you're later found ineligible.

Foreign nationals with an Indian degree can apply for admission, subject to the institute's own rules for foreign students.

1. Register on JOAPS and pay the fee.
2. Sit one or two papers.
3. Qualify. Each paper gets an All India Rank and an All India Merit List whose length depends on the seats in each category for that subject.
4. Apply for admission online with a ₹750 non-refundable processing fee. One application covers every programme you want across the 22 IITs, in your order of preference, even if you qualified in two papers.
5. Freeze your choices by the published date.
6. Admission rounds: up to four, plus an additional round if seats are left.

IIT admission is on All India Rank alone, subject to ERs, MEQs and the reservation policy. No interview, no second test.

When you're offered a seat

• Accept as final: no change in later rounds.
• Accept with upgrade: stay in the running for higher choices.
• Reject and quit.

Accepting means paying the seat booking fee through JOAPS by the offer deadline. It goes to the institute and is adjusted against fees. Miss the document upload or the payment and you can lose the seat. Being on the merit list gives no automatic right to admission, and every offer is provisional until all requirements are met.

IISc, NITs, IISERs and the other Result Sharing Institutes admit through CCMN, and you approach them directly. No further test or interview there either.

JAM is an entrance test for a postgraduate degree, so there's no salary. What matters is the cost.

The seat booking fee is adjusted against the institute fee, but it's due within days of an admission list, so have it ready. The application fee is under application details.

Programme fees are set by each IIT. Many M.Sc. students get institute or national scholarships, and M.Sc. to Ph.D. routes have their own fellowship rules: IIT Patna, for instance, needs a CPI of at least 8.0 to move to a Ph.D. with fellowship after four semesters. Check the admitting institute's terms.

Everything runs on JOAPS, the JAM Online Application Processing System: registration, form, uploads, payment, status, admit card and scorecard.

Fee

So a second paper costs only ₹700, or ₹350 for the concessional categories. Pay online (net banking, card, UPI or wallet). It's non-refundable. Changing category, gender, city, date of birth or paper costs ₹300 plus any fee difference.

Steps

1. Register with name, email, mobile and password. Keep the Enrollment ID and password safe.
2. Fill the form (you can save and come back).
3. Upload photo, signature, 10th marksheet showing date of birth, and any category or disability certificate.
4. Pick paper(s) and cities, then pay. After you click Proceed for Payment you can't change anything, though you can add a second paper later for the extra fee.

Your name must match your degree exactly, with no Mr, Shri, Dr, Ms, Mrs or Smt.

Photo and signature

A poor or low-resolution photo gets the application rejected without refund.

• Photo: recent, colour, white or very light background, 3.5 cm by 4.5 cm, JPEG, 240x320 to 480x640 pixels, 20 KB to 200 KB, aspect ratio 0.66 to 0.89. Face at least 50% of the frame, looking straight ahead, forehead, eyes, nose, ears and chin uncovered. No tinted glasses; take spectacles off if they glare.
• Signature: black or dark blue ink only, within 2 cm by 7 cm, JPEG, 80x280 to 160x560 pixels, 10 KB to 150 KB, aspect ratio 3.15 to 4.04. No capitals-only names or initials.

If the payment doesn't show, log in again after an hour before paying again; money debited but not recorded comes back within ten working days.

Applications are checked after submission and defects are flagged by email and SMS. Fix a flagged defect in time or the application can be rejected. Do the whole thing yourself rather than handing it to someone else.

Admitting Institutes: 22 IITs

Around 3,000 seats in 89 programmes, filled on All India Rank through one application on the JAM site. The seat matrix and MEQs are in Annexure II of the brochure and the Admission Brochure, published in the second week of March.

Result Sharing Institutes: over 2,000 seats

IISc, the CFTIs, NITs, DIAT, IIEST Shibpur, IISER Pune, IISER Bhopal, IIPE, JNCASR and SLIET, among others. Admission runs through CCMN, and you approach these institutes directly, not through the JAM organiser. See the list on the JAM site.

Programmes

M.Sc., M.Sc. (Tech.), M.S. (Research), M.Sc. and M.Tech. dual degree, Joint M.Sc. and Ph.D., M.Sc. and Ph.D. dual degree, and Integrated Ph.D., taught in English.

Who runs JAM

One IIT organises each year, with IISc Bengaluru and six other IITs running zones. JAM 2026: IIT Bombay, with IISc Bengaluru and IIT Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkee. JAM 2025 was organised by IIT Delhi.

Qualifying doesn't guarantee admission, a scholarship or a job.

JAM is held in around 116 cities in eight zones, listed in Annexure IV of the brochure and on the Examination Cities page. You give three choices, but your first choice fixes the zone and the other two must be in it. If none can be given, another city is allotted.

Bring the admit card printout, preferably in colour, and the original photo ID you named in the form (Aadhaar, driving licence, PAN card, passport or voter ID). No one is let in without both.

Scribes

JAM provides the scribe; you can't bring your own unless it can't arrange one, in which case you'll be told by email, SMS or phone.

• The scribe is two to three academic years below your qualification, and at least 12th pass, and not a JAM candidate.
• For Y candidates needing a scribe, a panel of Y+1 is kept, and you choose from two scribes the day before.
• The scribe only reads out the questions verbatim and clicks for you. No translating or explaining.
• PwD candidates may visit the centre the day before.

JAM 2026, organised by IIT Bombay

Registration opens in early September and the exam is in mid-February; the whole cycle to offer letter takes about ten months. The deadline to add a paper comes weeks after registration closes. The Admission Brochure with the final seat matrix comes out in the second week of March.

JAM 2027's organiser and schedule haven't been announced. Recent cycles put registration in early September and the exam in mid-February.

Download it from JOAPS from the published date until exam day (for 2026, from 5 January). It isn't posted or emailed.

It shows your name, registration number, photo, signature, each paper's name and code, and the centre. If you're sitting two papers, both are on one card. Check every entry and email the organising institute about any mistake.

Keep a copy: the admitting institute may ask for it at admission, months later.

Each paper gets an All India Rank and an All India Merit List sized by the seats in each category. Everyone on it is a Qualified Candidate and can apply for admission. The scorecard with rank and marks is downloadable for qualified candidates; in 2026 the result came on 20 March and the scorecard on 27 March.

JAM 2026 by paper

JAM 2026 by category

Source: the Statistical and Performance Report. No re-evaluation route is published; the organiser's decision is final, and disputes go to the High Court of the organising institute's state.

JAM 2026 cut-off marks out of 100, from the Statistical and Performance Report:

• Cut-offs follow the seats in each subject, so they can't be compared across papers.
• OBC-NCL and EWS is exactly 90% of General; SC, ST and PwD exactly 50%.
• The lowest mark is negative on every paper, down to −14 in Physics. That's Section A's penalty on people who guessed.

With around 3,000 IIT seats and over 2,000 through CCMN, roughly three qualified candidates chase each seat. The number that tells you what a given seat needs is the opening and closing ranks for each programme, published on the JAM site.

• Attempt every MSQ and NAT question. Sections B and C, 50 marks, carry no penalty, so a blank is pure loss.
• Be selective in Section A. A third off a 1-mark question and two-thirds off a 2-mark one add up fast.
• Treat MSQ as all or nothing. Getting some of the right options scores zero, so work out the full set.
• Get used to the virtual calculator and keypad on the mock test. Both are slower than what you're used to.
• Use past papers to judge depth. The syllabus says what's in scope; the previous papers show how deeply it's examined.
• Sit full three-hour papers under the real marking rules. If you're taking two papers, practise two in one day at least once.
• Pick the first exam city with your fallbacks in mind, since it fixes the zone.
• Check JOAPS after applying and fix any flagged defect in time.
• Build your preference list from the opening and closing ranks, and have the seat booking fee ready before the first list.

JAM publishes its own papers, free:

• Previous years' question papers
• Master question papers and answer keys for 2026, released after the exam each year
• A mock test on the real interface

These pages move to the next organising institute's JAM site each cycle.

• JAM 2026 official website (IIT Bombay). Each year's site is hosted by that year's organiser.
• JOAPS: registration, application, admit card, scorecard
• Information Brochure (PDF): pattern, fees, eligibility, syllabus (Annexure I), seat matrix (Annexure II), cities (Annexure IV)
• Admission Brochure (PDF): final seats and MEQs
• Statistical and Performance Report (PDF): cut-offs and qualified counts
• Previous year papers, master papers and keys, mock test
• Opening and closing ranks
• CCMN: admission to IISc, NITs, IISERs and other Result Sharing Institutes

Who conducts JAM?

One IIT each year for all the IITs. JAM 2026 was organised by IIT Bombay; JAM 2025 by IIT Delhi.

What is the exam pattern?

60 questions, 100 marks, three hours, in three sections: 30 MCQs (50 marks), 10 MSQs (20 marks) and 20 numerical questions (30 marks).

Where does the negative marking apply?

Section A only. Sections B and C have none.

Is there partial marking on multiple-select questions?

No. A partly right MSQ scores zero.

How many papers can I take?

One or two, and two only if they're in different sessions.

What does it cost?

₹2,000 for one paper or ₹2,700 for two; ₹1,000 and ₹1,350 for female, SC, ST and PwD candidates.

Is there an age limit or minimum percentage?

No. Any final-year or completed bachelor's student can sit it. Percentage rules apply only at admission.

Can I use my own calculator?

No. There's an on-screen calculator.

Does qualifying guarantee admission?

No. Admission depends on rank, seats and the institute's MEQs.

How many seats are there?

Around 3,000 at 22 IITs, plus over 2,000 at IISc, NITs, IISERs and others through CCMN.

Is there an interview?

No, at the IITs or through CCMN.

Can I bring my own scribe?

No. JAM provides one and you choose between two the day before.

When is JAM 2027?

Not announced yet. Recent cycles opened registration in early September with the exam in mid-February.