NEET SS Preparation Tips 2025: Last-Minute Preparation Strategy & Guide

The NEET SS exam does not have a fixed syllabus. Usually, questions from medical course books are asked up to the postgraduate level. You are advised to read your course books to prepare for this exam. Other than course material, you can study the following books: 1. Harrison's textbook of Internal Medicine 2. NEET SS MCQ book by Deepak Marwah & Mudit Khanna 3. Schwartz's Principles of Surgery 4. R. Kumar's book named Clinical Methods in Medicine 5. Guyton and Hall's book named Textbook of Medical Physiology.

The total duration of the NEET SS exam is 150 minutes or 2.5 hours. There is a sectional time limit of 50 minutes for each of the three sections. Hence, candidates have to manage the time accordingly to attempt as many number of questions as possible within this duration. There are 150 questions in total and 50 questions in each section. Hence, to attempt all the questions, test-takers will get one minute per question. Along with maintaining to speed to complete the NEET SS exam, candidates must also maintain accuracy to avoid losing marks since there is a negative marking scheme. 

There is no fixed syllabus for NEET SS. The questions can be asked from all the topics that have been covered during both, the undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications. However the subjects that need to be prepared will be limited to the feeder course and super speciality course selected by the candidate Paediatric Cardio thoracic Vascular Surgery Thoracic Surgery Cardio Vascular and Thoracic Surgery Vascular Surgery Hepato Pancreato Biliary Surgery Surgical Gastroenterology Paediatric Hepatology Paediatric Oncology Paediatric Nephrology Paediatric Cardiology Paediatric Gastroenterology Neonatology Paediatric and Neonatal Anaesthesia Organ Transplant Anaesthesia and Critical CareCardiac Anesthesia.

Each question of NEET SS carries four marks. For each wrong answer, one mark is deducted. No marks is deducted or awarded for questions left unanswered in the NEET SS exam. 

NEET SS or National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Super Speciality Courses) is conducted by the National Board of Education for admission to various DM/ M.Ch. Courses. It is a qualifying cum ranking examination for admission to super speciality courses. For appearing in NEET SS, aspirants should hold a postgraduate degree (MD/MS/DNB) or any equivalent examination. By qualifying the exam, candidates can take admission in speciality courses. According to the Indian Medical Council Act, 2016, no other entrance test is valid for admission to these courses. NEET SS is conducted annually in computer-based mode.

No. Candidates will have to score the minimum cutoff marks to qualify for NEET SS exam, which is 50 percentile. NBE prescribes the minimum qualifying cutoff for NEET SS along with the release of the result. Candidates will have to secure the minimum percentile or more to qualify for the exam.  Qualified candidates will be eligible to participate in the counselling process for seat allotment.

The NEET SS exam has 15 course groups. Candidates have to select one or more groups while filling the NEET SS application form. The course groups are listed below:

• ENT
• Respiratory Medicine
• Obstetrics & Gynaecology
• Medical Oncology
• Orthopaedics
• Critical Care
• Medical
• Radiodiagnosis
• Microbiology
• Pathology
• Psychiatry
• Surgical
• Paediatric
• Anaesthesiology
• Pharmacology

 According to the latest exam pattern of NEET SS, there are 150 multiple-choice questions, from broad speciality and super speciality course. There will be three time-bound sections of 50 minutes each, carrying 50 questions. The question paper is of 600 marks.  The question paper will consist of questions from the General/Basic component of the primary feeder broad specialty subject and from all sub-specialty/systems/component of that primary feeder broad specialty subject. All the 150 questions would be from the Curriculum of the Post Graduate Exit level of the primary feeder broad specialty subject. Candidates will get two-and-a-half hours to attempt the questions. 

The NEET SS exam is conducted for a window of two days, with two slots each day. Hence, the total number of slots in which the NEET SS exam is conducted is four. Each of the slots conducts different exam groups. The duration of the exam is 2.5 hours or 150 minutes. The table below brings the slot-wise timings of the NEET SS exam.

NEET SS Slot	Timings
Forenoon or Morning Slot	9 AM to 11.30 AM
Afternoon Slot	2 PM to 4.30 PM

There are a total of 15 groups which are covered in the NEET SS exam. These groups are divided into the four slots conducted over two days.

The NEET SS 2024 exam was conducted on March 29 and March 30, 2025, in a window of two days and two slots. According to the test-takers, the difficulty level of the exam was moderate to tough. Those who attempted the exam for the first time found the difficulty level to be very tough. Those who appeared for the second or third time found the NEET SS 2024 difficulty level to be on the moderate to tough lines. Some courses such as Oncology, Critical Care Medicine, and Surgical Groups had higher difficulty levels as compared to other groups.