NEET UG · Physics · Class 11
Waves: NEET previous year questions
9 questions in ten years of NEET, asked in 7 of 10 years. Here is what this chapter tests and how.
- Asked in 10 years
- 9
- 7 of 10 papers
- 10-year average
- 0.9
- a paper · 0.7 since 2024 -0.3
- Typical range
- 0–2
- questions a paper; fewest 0, most 2
- Weighted estimate
- 0.8
- model, recent papers count more · about 3 marks
- Typical range (fact)
- 10-year average (fact)
- Weighted estimate (model)
Typical range: questions per paper in the middle eight of the ten papers, leaving out the single highest and lowest year (about the 10th to 90th percentile), each paper scaled to 180 questions. The ten-year average and the range are historical fact. The weighted estimate is a model: each paper's share, with recent papers counting more (half-life three years), and dropped syllabus removed. It is a guide to effort, not a forecast.
What to do
How to spend time on Waves
Priority
Among the chapters that shared the last fifth of the questions. How bands are set
- Past questions
- 9in 7 of 10 papers
- Study plan gives it
- 8 hover 12 months; 6 h over 6
Ideas asked most often
- Open Organ Pipe Harmonics3×
178 of the 183 ideas in Lumi’s map of this chapter have not been asked or touched in ten years. New questions often come from ideas like these, so learn the whole chapter, not just the list above.
Questions per year
Kind of question
SHARE OF 10 YEARS- Calculation78%
- Application22%
Most common asks: numerical (7); ratio of fundamental frequencies of open and closed pipes (1); frequency of pipe partly dipped in water (1).
Profile
This chapter in numbers
Where it ranks, how steady it is, and what it costs to study.
- Rank, all NEET chapters
- #77
- of 80 by weighted estimate
- Rank in Physics
- #24
- of 27 chapters
- Share of the paper
- 0.5%
- ten-year average
- Busiest year
- 2017
- 2 questions
- Year to year
- Steady
- varies by about 0.7 questions
- Long-run direction
- -0.09
- questions per paper, per year
- Easy questions
- 33%
- 83% of ideas rated hard
- With a figure
- 0%
- graph, diagram or structure
- Study time
- 8 h
- 6 h on a 6-month plan
- Marks per study hour
- 0.37
- #79 of 80 chapters
- Foundation for others
- 100%
- of its ideas are used in other chapters
Difficulty, year by year
Each question rated easy, medium or hard against NCERT.
- 20172
- 20182
- 2019
- 20201
- 2021
- 20221
- 20231
- 2024
- 20251
- 20261
- Easy
- Medium
- Hard
What it asks you to do
SHARE OF QUESTIONS- Calculation44%
- Application33%
- Multi-step11%
- Concept11%
Coverage
How much of the chapter NEET has used
We split the chapter into 183 ideas. In ten years NEET built a question around 2 of them. Most of the chapter has never been asked, which is why learning it whole beats memorising past questions.
- Asked as the main idea
- 2
- Touched on in a question
- 3
- Never asked
- 178
Topics
What repeats, topic by topic
Questions per topic in each year's paper. Topics that come every year are worth learning first.
- Standing Waves, Organ Pipes and Beats · Every year7121111
- Doppler Effect · Gone quiet11
- Progressive Waves · Now and then11
| Topic | 2017 | ’18 | 2019 | ’20 | 2021 | ’22 | 2023 | ’24 | 2025 | ’26 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standing Waves, Organ Pipes and BeatsEvery year | 1 | 2 | · | 1 | · | · | 1 | · | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| Doppler EffectGone quiet | 1 | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | 1 |
| Progressive WavesNow and then | · | · | · | · | · | 1 | · | · | · | · | 1 |
Drill down
Topic, idea, question
Open a topic to see every idea NEET tested inside it, then open an idea to read the questions. Each row shows its ten papers.
Ideas
The exact ideas NEET has asked
Inside the topics, 7 different ideas were tested. These came more than once, or are new since 2024.
- Open Organ Pipe Harmonics3×
numerical
- Nodes and AntinodesNew1×
numerical
Every question
Waves questions, year by year
The opening words of each question as it appeared in the official paper.
NEET 20261 question
- Q4For sound waves, if the number of nodes for the 5 harmonic of an open-ended pipe is n and that for the 9 harmonic of the…Numerical
NEET 20251 question
- Q45A pipe open at both ends has a fundamental frequency in air. The pipe is now dipped vertically in a water drum to half of its length.…One-line MCQ
NEET 20231 question
- Q14The ratio of frequencies of fundamental harmonic produced by an open pipe to that of closed pipe having the same length is :One-line MCQ
NEET 20221 question
- Q35If the initial tension on a stretched string is doubled, then the ratio of the initial and final speeds of a transverse wave along the…Numerical
NEET 20201 question
- Q147In a guitar, two strings A and B made of same material are slightly out of tune and produce beats of frequency 6 Hz. When tension in B is…Numerical
NEET 20182 questions
- Q2The fundamental frequency in an open organ pipe is equal to the third harmonic of a closed organ pipe. If the length of the closed organ…Numerical
- Q24A tuning fork is used to produce resonance in a glass tube. The length of the air column in this tube can be adjusted by a variable…Numerical
NEET 20172 questions
- Q20Two cars moving in opposite directions approach each other with speed of 22 m/s and 16.5 m/s respectively. The driver of the first car…Numerical
- Q43The two nearest harmonics of a tube closed at one end and open at other end are 220 Hz and 260 Hz. What is the fundamental frequency of…Numerical
Questions from the official NEET UG papers published by NTA (CBSE before 2019). Topic and idea tags, counts and notes are Lumi’s.