NEET UG · Physics · Thermal Properties of Matter

Calorimetry: NEET previous year questions

2 questions in ten years of NEET, in 2 of 10 papers. Pattern: Gone quiet. Here is how it is asked and which ideas come back.

Asked in 10 years: 2; about 0.2 per paper
Years asked: 2/10; last asked 2021
Chance of a question next paper: 30%; historical rate, how we compute it
Weighted estimate: 0.1; model; history: 0.2 a paper on average, typically 0–1

Key findings

01
Asked in 2 of 10 papers, 2 questions in all: #187 of 204 topics by ten-year total. Last asked in 2021.
02
100% of its questions since 2018 tested an idea never asked before; none repeated an idea from the year before.
03
No idea in this topic has been asked twice: every question tested something new.
04
NEET has asked 2 of the 92 ideas in this topic; 90 have never been asked, directly or indirectly.
05
Mostly asked as numerical (100%); 0% easy, 0% hard.

Questions per year

Up to 2023: 0.3; per paper
Since 2024: 0.0; -0.3
Usual gap: 1.0 yrs; between papers asking it
Swing: ±0.4; questions, year to year

How it is asked

Difficulty, format and skill

Across all 2 questions on Calorimetry since 2017.

Difficulty

QUESTIONS

Easy0 · 0%
Medium2 · 100%
Hard0 · 0%

Format

Numerical · 2 Q100%

Skill tested

Calculation · 1 Q50%
Application · 1 Q50%

Repeats

New idea, or one asked before?

Each column is a paper. Blue questions tested an idea NEET had not asked before; navy ones went back to an idea from an earlier paper. 2017 is the first paper, so everything in it counts as new.

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’26

Idea asked for the first time
Idea asked in an earlier paper

Coverage of the topic

NEET has asked 2 of the 92 ideas in this topic. 90 have never been asked yet.

Asked directly2 · 2%
Touched inside another question0 · 0%
Never asked90 · 98%

Ideas come from Lumi’s syllabus map of NCERT. A never-asked idea is not a safe skip: most new questions come from exactly these.

Drill down

Idea, year, question

Every idea NEET tested in this topic, with its ten papers. Open one to read the questions.

ideaAskedShareYears’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’26

1 · 50%50%1/10
- 2021 · Q8
  A cup of coffee cools from 90°C to 80°C in t minutes, when the room temperature is 20°C. The time taken by a similar cup of coffee to cool…
  mediumNumericalNew idea
1 · 50%50%1/10

Squares are the ten papers, 2017 to 2026; darker means more questions. Share is of the level above.

Ideas

Every idea inside this topic

2 different ideas were tested; none came more than once. Thermal Capacity (Heat Capacity) is the foundation for 4 other ideas in the syllabus.

Radiation Correction in Calorimetry1×
numerical
Numerical · 4% next
Thermal Capacity (Heat Capacity)1×
ratio of heat needed for spheres
Numerical · 4% next · foundation for 4

Idea	Years asked	Times	Format	Chance next	Foundation for
Radiation Correction in Calorimetrynumerical		1	NumericalCalculation	4%	–
Thermal Capacity (Heat Capacity)ratio of heat needed for spheres		1	NumericalApplication	4%	4 ideas

Chance next is the historical rate at which an idea with this record came back in the following paper. It is low for every idea, which is why learning the topic beats memorising past questions. All repeated ideas

Every question

Calorimetry questions, year by year

The opening words of each question as it appeared in the official paper, with the idea it tested.

NEET 20211 question

Q8
A cup of coffee cools from 90°C to 80°C in t minutes, when the room temperature is 20°C. The time taken by a similar cup of coffee to cool…
Idea: Radiation Correction in Calorimetry
New ideaMediumNumerical

NEET 20201 question

Q174
The quantities of heat required to raise the temperature of two solid copper spheres of radii $r_1$ and $r_2$ ( $r_1 = 1.5\,r_2$ ) through 1…
Idea: Thermal Capacity (Heat Capacity)
New ideaMediumNumerical

Questions from the official NEET UG papers published by NTA (CBSE before 2019). Topic and idea tags, counts and notes are Lumi’s.