CSIR NET LIFE SCIENCE PAST PAPERS

Aditya Arya (Madurai Kamraj Univ.)

BIOCHEMISTRY 

Analysis of Biochemistry trend in CSIR-NET

                                                                                                                                                                                                          

BROAD ANALYSIS OF BIOCHEMISTRY IN CSIR-NET EXAM

Hi every one,
this post is especially for those students who are thriving hard for CSIR-NET exam which is nearing. As the exam is approaching, the difficult part is what to read and what to leave. We at Grassroots Academy care about you and take responsibility to analyze some of the key sections to present you a trend. This post will guide you about the trends in Biochemistry over the past couple of years.  


As suggested previously, do not rush for every topic given in CSIR-NET syllabus but look for your strong areas and brush them up to the level of excellence, as this is high time to brush up the concepts rather than wiping out the syllabus. 

First let’s have a look at the number of questions in CSIR paper from biochemistry section, following table will guide you, and we find that on an average 4-5 questions in part B and more than 5 questions in part C are asked every years, which is a significant portion, and believe me if you could attempt all questions correctly you will be up by at 70 - 80 ranks.  

EXAM	Part - B	Part - C
Dec 2014	4	6
June 2014	7	10
Dec 2013	5	6
June 2013	7	6
Dec 2012	4	4
June 2012	4	7

                                                                                                                                                                                                         

TOPIC-WISE ANALYSIS OF QUESTIONS…

Furthermore, we performed topic wise analysis of questions, and observed that amino acids, peptide bonds and both theoretical & experimental aspect of proteins forms most important fraction of questions every year in both the sections. Indeed we spend a lot of time in classroom as well in discussing this topic. 

Moreover, essential chemistry concepts such as pH, buffer, thermodynamics, kinetics, and bimolecular interactions had 2-5 questions per paper,and these questions are easy, simple concept based rather than memory based. Enzymology is persistently asked especially the kinetics and regulation of enzyme activity. 

As mentioned in the previous post, you may not have to worry much about the bulk of metabolism, and that’s where you may relax! However look out for basic carbohydrate metabolism along with their energetics.

Finally the techniques, many biochemical techniques (such as chromatography, SDS PAGE, protein sequencing), as well as biophysical methods XRD, NMR, CD etc have been trending in the recent exams. Many of these techniques are either covered along with the biomolecules or they are taught after the completion of biochemistry syllabus.  

You may like to refer last part of protein chapter in Lehninger’s Biochemistry for studying some of these techniques. Anyone with hands-on – experience will surely have advantage in solving such questions as most of them are analytical rather than memory based. 

Year Topics	Dec 2014		June 2014		Dec 2013		June 2013		Dec 2012		June 2012
	B	C	B	C	B	C	B	C	B	C	B	C
Water, pH, Buffers, Kc, Thermodynamics, Kinetics		1		4		2	2	1	1	1		2
Molecular interactions in biomolecules	1		1		1		1		1
Amino acids, peptide bond, protein’s sequencing, structures, conformations, folding, denaturation		2	3	3		1	1	2	1	1	1	2
Carbohydrates, Lipids, Nucleic acid	2	1	1		2		1				3
Metabolism						1				1		1
Enzymology	1	1			1	1		1	1	1		1
Biophysical Techniques		1	2	3	1	1	2	2				1

I would like to acknowledge Mr. Tahir Iqbal, for extensive analysis of CSIR question papers. Soon we will update you with analysis of other domains.
Keep visiting.