The Joint Entrance Examination – Advanced (JEE–Advanced) is an academic competitive examination held annually in India that tests the skills and knowledge of applicants in physics, chemistry and mathematics. It serves as the second stage of the Joint Entrance Examination. It is the primary assessment for entrance to the IITs and various engineering colleges in India. It is considered to be one of the toughest examinations in the world.
It is organised by one of the seven selected Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs): IIT Roorkee, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, and IIT Guwahati, under the guidance of the Joint Admission Board (JAB) on a round-robin rotation pattern for the qualifying candidates of the Joint Entrance Examination – Main (exempted for foreign nationals and candidates who have secured OCI/PIO cards on or after 04–03–2021). The examination logistics are co-ordinated by seven zonal IITs, which include IIT Roorkee, IIT Bhubaneswar / IIT Kharagpur (taking turns every alternate year), IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras / IIT Hyderabad (taking turns every alternate year), and IIT Guwahati. All 23 IITs participate in setting of the paper under the JAB.
JEE–Advanced used to be the sole prerequisite for admission to the IITs' bachelor's programs before the introduction of NCET(ITEP), UCEED, online B.S. and Olympiad entries, but seats through these new media are very low.
The JEE–Advanced score is also used as a possible basis for admission by Indian applicants to non-Indian universities such as the University of Cambridge and the National University of Singapore. High school students from across India typically prepare for several years to take this exam, and a large percentage attend coaching institutes.
Each year, around 1.5 million students appear for JEE Main, with 250 thousand qualifying to take JEE Advanced for about 19 thousand seats at the IITs and IISc.
History
Before the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), India had a few engineering colleges. These colleges used different ways to admit students. Some used school marks while and others had their own tests. The quality of education and the ways to get into college were not the same across India.
The Indian government wanted to make better engineers. The first institute among IITs, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, started in 1951. In its initial years before 1961, students were admitted based on their academic results, followed by an interview in several locations across the country. From 1955 to 1960, admissions to Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur were conducted via a national examination. Academic disciplines were allotted to the students via interviews and counselling sessions held at Kharagpur.
The IIT-JEE was first conducted in 1961 as Common Entrance Exam (CEE), coinciding with the 1961 IIT Act. This was the start of a big change in how students got into IITs. The JEE had papers in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. It also had a paper in English. Students from all over India took the same test.
In 1978, the English paper was not considered when ranking participants' performance in the examination. In 1988, the English test was discontinued.
In 1997, the IIT-JEE was conducted twice after the question paper was leaked in some locations.
Between 2000 and 2005, an additional screening test was used alongside the main examination, intended to reduce pressure on the main examination by allowing only about 20,000 top candidates to appear for the examination, out of more than 450,000 applicants.
In 2002, an additional exam called the AIEEE was introduced, and it was used for admissions to many institutions of national importance other than the IITs.
In June 2005, The Hindu newspaper led a campaign for reforming the IIT-JEE to eradicate the "coaching mania" and to improve gender and socio-economic diversity.S.S. Vasan. Reforming the Joint Entrance Examination system.Editorial. JEE Advanced Exam Date 2026.National admission test called for. Two possible solutions were proposed - either a convergence between the screening test and the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE), or a two-tier examination, where ranks from the first tier can be used to gain admission to the NITs and other engineering colleges in the country.
In September 2005, the group of directors of all the IITs announced significant revisions to the examination. These were implemented 2006 onward.Indrani Dutta. New IIT-JEE format from 2006. The revised examination consisted of a single objective test, replacing and abolishing the earlier two-test system with screener. In the revised examination, to be eligible for taking it, candidates in the general category had to obtain at least 60% aggregate marks in the 12th-grade examinations organized by various educational boards of India, while candidates belonging to Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Persons With Disabilities (PwD) categories needed a minimum score of 55%.
In 2008, the director and the dean of IIT Madras proposed further revisions to the examination, arguing that coaching institutes were "enabling many among the less-than-best students to crack the test and keeping girls from qualifying". They expressed concern that the present system did not allow for applicants' 12 years of schooling to have a bearing on admissions into the IITs.D Suresh Kumar. JEE fails to get the best: IIT dons. The Times of India. 31 Jul 2008.
In 2008, the Indian Institutes of Technology began offering their admission tests in Dubai. Annually, the number of candidates for the examination in Dubai varies between 200 and 220.
On 28 May 2012, the AIEEE was officially renamed JEE-Main, and IIT-JEE was renamed JEE–Advanced; the JEE-Main had become the screening exam for JEE–Advanced; the first test with this change was conducted in 2013.
In 2018, the JEE–Advanced exam started being conducted online.
Qualifying percentage (As of JEE Advanced 2024) +Minimum percentage of marks prescribed for inclusion in the rank list in 2024CategoryMinimum percentage (%) of marks in each subjectMinimum percentage (%) of aggregate marksCommon rank list (CRL) 8.68 30.34OBC-NCL/GEN-EWS 7.80 27.30ST/SC/PWD 4.34 15.17Preparatory course for SC/ST/PWD 2.5 7.58 Minimum percentage of aggregate/subject marks may be lowered subsequently considering the toughness of the paper and the need of students.
+Minimum percentage of marks prescribed for inclusion in the rank list in 2022CategoryMinimum percentage (%) of marks in each subjectMinimum percentage (%) of aggregate marksCommon rank list (CRL) 4.17 15.28OBC-NCL/GEN-EWS 4.17 13.89ST/SC/PWD 2.50 7.78Preparatory course for SC/ST/PWD 0.83 3.89
Number of applicants by year Year Registered Appeared Qualified%Qualified196119,500 - - -197829,477 - - -198872,298 - - -199079,559 - - -199592,893 - - - 1997 91,279 - - - 1998 95,419 - - - 1999 112,347 - - - 2000 128,624 - - - 2001 147,775 - - - 2002 178,043 - - - 2003 178,940 - - - 2004 175,355 - - - 2005 198,059 - - - 2006 299,087 - - - 2007 251,803 243,029 7,2002.96 2008 321,653 311,258 8,6522.77 2009 398,264 384,977 10,0352.60 2010 473,982 455,571 13,1042.87 2011 485,136 468,280 13,1962.81 2012 506,484 479,651 24,1125.02 2013 126,749 115,971 20,83417.96 2014 126,995 119,580 27,15222.70 2015 124,741 117,238 26,35422.47 2016 155,797 147,678 36,56624.76 2017 171,814 159,540 51,04031.99 2018 165,656 155,158 31,98820.62 2019 174,432 161,319 38,70523.99 2020 160,838 150,838 43,20428.64 2021 151,193 141,699 41,86229.542022160,038155,53840,71226.172023189,744180,37243,77324.262024186,584180,20048,24826.772025187,223180,42254,37830.142026187,389179,69456,88031.65
Organizing institute The JEE – Advanced exam is conducted by the seven zonal Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs): IIT Roorkee, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras and IIT Guwahati on a rotating basis. This list shows the organizers of the exam in recent years.
YearOrganizerDate2000IIT Delhi2001IIT Kharagpur2002IIT Bombay2003IIT Madras2004IIT Kanpur2005IIT Delhi2006IIT Kharagpur2007IIT Bombay2008IIT Roorkee2009IIT Guwahati2010IIT Madras2011IIT Kanpur2012IIT Delhi2013IIT Delhi2 June 20132014IIT Kharagpur25 May 20142015IIT Bombay24 May 20152016IIT Guwahati22 May 20162017IIT Madras21 May 20172018IIT Kanpur20 May 20182019IIT Roorkee27 May 20192020IIT Delhi27 September 20202021IIT Kharagpur3 October 20212022IIT Bombay28 August 20222023IIT Guwahati4 June 20232024IIT Madras26 May 20242025IIT Kanpur18 May 20252026IIT Roorkee17 May 2026
Paper pattern JEE (Advanced) is conducted in two papers of three hours each – Paper-1 and Paper-2 (both compulsory) consist of questions from three major subjects: physics, chemistry and mathematics. Unlike most of the other exams, the type, the number of questions being asked in the paper, the total marks and the marking scheme varies from year to year depending upon the organizing institute, with an average of about 32–38 questions asked from each subject across both the papers. For example, the 2021 JEE–Advanced paper had 38 questions (19 questions in Paper-1 and the next 19 in Paper-2) from each of the three subjects.
Each paper in every subject is usually divided into 3 or 4 sections featuring different question formats. Below is an illustrative guide showing examples of common problem types alongside their respective grading criteria: +SectionProblem typeDescription14 single-correct MCQs +4 marks for every correct answer 0 marks for unanswered questions -1 mark for every wrong answer23 question stems with 2 questions per stem (numerical answers with two decimal places) +2 marks for every correct answer 0 marks otherwise36 multi-correct MCQs +4 marks if (all) the correct option(s) is(are) chosen +3 marks if all the options are correct but only 3 options are chosen +2 marks if 3 or more options are correct but only 2 correct options are chosen +1 mark if 2 or more options are correct but only 1 correct option is chosen 0 marks if unanswered −2 marks if at least 1 incorrect option is chosen43 fill-in-the-blank questions (answers are non-negative integers) +4 marks for a correct answer 0 marks otherwise5integer answers type questions +4 marks for a correct answer 0 marks otherwise6Numerical answer based questions +3 marks for correct answer 0 marks otherwise
Some previous year papers also included matrix match type questions instead of single-correct multiple choice questions.
Syllabus Since the starting of the examination in 1961, the syllabus majorly consists of topics that are taught in Indian High schools, from the curriculum of Class XI and Class XII. These include topics from mathematics, physics and chemistry (organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry and physical chemistry). A recent change in the syllabus was carried out in November 2021, when a revised syllabus was adopted for the exam, this syllabus has been implemented from 2023 onwards. A brief overview of topics asked is listed below.
Mathematics