NEET UG · Biology · Principles of Inheritance and Variation

Linkage and Recombination: NEET previous year questions

6 questions in ten years of NEET, in 4 of 10 papers. Pattern: Due again. Here is how it is asked and which ideas come back.

Asked in 10 years: 6; about 0.6 per paper
Years asked: 4/10; last asked 2023
Chance of a question next paper: 50%; historical rate, how we compute it
Weighted estimate: 0.4; model; history: 0.6 a paper on average, typically 0–2

Key findings

01
Asked in 4 of 10 papers, 6 questions in all: #135 of 204 topics by ten-year total. It comes back every 1.3 years on average. Last asked in 2023.
02
83% of its questions since 2018 tested an idea never asked before; none repeated an idea from the year before.
03
The most repeated idea is Sturtevant's Genetic Mapping, asked 2 times (2019, 2023), usually as “identify scientist for a discovery”.
04
NEET has asked 5 of the 87 ideas in this topic; 80 have never been asked, directly or indirectly.
05
Mostly asked as one-line MCQ (83%); 83% easy, 0% hard, and down from 0.8 to 0.0 questions a paper since 2024.

Questions per year

Up to 2023: 0.8; per paper
Since 2024: 0.0; -0.8
Usual gap: 1.3 yrs; between papers asking it
Swing: ±0.8; questions, year to year

How it is asked

Difficulty, format and skill

Across all 6 questions on Linkage and Recombination since 2017.

Difficulty

QUESTIONS

Easy5 · 83%
Medium1 · 17%
Hard0 · 0%

Format

One-line MCQ · 5 Q83%
Assertion–reason · 1 Q17%

Skill tested

Recall · 4 Q67%
Concept · 1 Q17%
Multi-step · 1 Q17%

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 5 of the 87 ideas in this topic. 80 have never been asked yet.

Asked directly5 · 6%
Touched inside another question2 · 2%
Never asked80 · 92%

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

Repeated2 · 33%33%2/10
- 2023 · Q111
  Frequency of recombination between gene pairs on same chromosome as a measure of the distance between genes to map their position on…
  easyOne-line MCQ
- 2019 · Q165
  The frequency of recombination between gene pairs on the same chromosome as a measure of the distance between genes was explained by :
  easyOne-line MCQNew idea
1 · 17%17%1/10
1 · 17%17%1/10
1 · 17%17%1/10
1 · 17%17%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

5 different ideas were tested; 1 came more than once. Morgan's Experiments is the foundation for 71 other ideas in the syllabus.

Sturtevant's Genetic Mapping2×
identify scientist for a discovery
One-line MCQ · 6% next
Exception to Independent Assortment1×
assertion-reason on linkage
Assertion–reason · 4% next
Genetic Mapping Units1×
gene order from recombination frequencies
One-line MCQ · 4% next · foundation for 21
Morgan's Experiments1×
identify scientist for a discovery
One-line MCQ · 4% next · foundation for 71
Centimorgan Definition1×
definition recall
One-line MCQ · 4% next

Idea	Times	Format	Chance next	Foundation for
Sturtevant's Genetic Mappingidentify scientist for a discovery	2	One-line MCQRecall	6%	–
Exception to Independent Assortmentassertion-reason on linkage	1	Assertion–reasonConcept	4%	–
Genetic Mapping Unitsgene order from recombination frequencies	1	One-line MCQMulti-step	4%	21 ideas
Morgan's Experimentsidentify scientist for a discovery	1	One-line MCQRecall	4%	71 ideas
Centimorgan Definitiondefinition recall	1	One-line MCQRecall	4%	–

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

Linkage and Recombination questions, year by year

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

NEET 20231 question

Q111
Frequency of recombination between gene pairs on same chromosome as a measure of the distance between genes to map their position on…
Idea: Sturtevant's Genetic Mapping
EasyOne-line MCQ

NEET 20222 questions

Q146
Given below are two statements : one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other is labelled as Reason (R). Assertion (A) : Mendel's law of…
Idea: Exception to Independent Assortment
New ideaEasyAssertion–reason
Q187
The recombination frequency between the genes a & c is 5%, b & c is 15%, b & d is 9%, a & b is 20%, c & d is 24% and a & d is 29%. What…
Idea: Genetic Mapping Units
New ideaMediumOne-line MCQ

NEET 20201 question

Q83
Experimental verification of the chromosomal theory of inheritance was done by :
Idea: Morgan's Experiments
New ideaEasyOne-line MCQ

NEET 20192 questions

Q129
What map unit (Centimorgan) is adopted in the construction of genetic maps ?
Idea: Centimorgan Definition
New ideaEasyOne-line MCQ
Q165
The frequency of recombination between gene pairs on the same chromosome as a measure of the distance between genes was explained by :
Idea: Sturtevant's Genetic Mapping
New ideaEasyOne-line MCQ

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