The National Testing Agency (NTA) has published the final answer key for the December 2024 session of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test (CSIR UGC NET).
Candidates can now view and download the answer key from the official portal — csirnet.nta.ac.in — without requiring any login credentials, as reported by Careers360.
A key update in the final document is the removal of two questions, one each from the Earth Sciences and Life Sciences papers. According to the revised answer key, the question with ID 702157 from the Earth Sciences paper conducted on February 28 (Shift 1) and question ID 703549 from the Life Sciences paper on March 1 (Shift 2) were dropped.
Additionally, two Life Sciences questions (IDs 703245 and 703554) from the March 1 examination were marked as having two correct answers each, potentially impacting candidate scores. These revisions come ahead of the expected release of the official cut-offs, which will also be made available on the same portal.
As highlighted by Careers360, the qualifying threshold remains unchanged — candidates from the General, Economically Weaker Section (EWS), and Other Backward Class (OBC) categories must secure at least 33%, while those from Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), and Persons with Disability (PwD) categories need 25%.
CSIR UGC NET is a national-level examination aimed at determining the eligibility of Indian nationals for Junior Research Fellowships, Assistant Professorships, and PhD admissions across universities and colleges in India.
