UGC NET syllabus paper 2: your subject paper, unit by unit

UGC NET syllabus paper 2 inside the full exam pattern

Both papers come in a single sitting, and the screen lets you switch between them. Correct answers earn 2 marks and wrong ones lose nothing, so every question should get an answer. Most subject papers are shown in English and Hindi; a language paper such as English, Hindi or Sanskrit is set in that language. Degree, marks and age conditions sit on a separate UGC NET eligibility explainer.

How every subject syllabus is built

Since UGC rewrote the subject syllabi, nearly every Paper 2 document follows the same plan: ten units, each listing topics, thinkers, texts or methods. The early units cover the history and basic concepts of the discipline, the middle ones go into its main branches, and the last one or two usually deal with recent theory and research methodology.

A few practical points when you open the PDF for your subject:

• Read the unit titles first and write them on a single sheet. That sheet becomes your progress chart.
• Named authors, works, cases or schools in the document are not decoration. Questions are often built directly on them.
• No unit carries an announced number of questions. Past papers suggest a fairly even spread, but treat that as a pattern, not a rule.

Dedicated pages exist for some subjects, such as the History, Commerce and Political Science papers.

UGC NET English syllabus paper 2: the ten units

English (code 30) is set and answered in English. Its ten units are:

1. Unit 1, drama
2. Unit 2, poetry
3. Unit 3, fiction including the short story
4. Unit 4, prose other than fiction
5. Unit 5, language: concepts, theories, teaching, and English in use
6. Unit 6, English in India: its history, growth and future
7. Unit 7, cultural studies
8. Unit 8, literary criticism
9. Unit 9, literary theory after the Second World War
10. Unit 10, research methods and materials

The first four units are genre based and cover British, American, Indian and other literatures in English, from the early period to the present. Questions ask you to match authors with works, place texts in chronological order, identify a passage, or link a writer to a movement. Units 7 to 9 are where many candidates lose marks, because terms from feminism, postcolonial thought, structuralism and deconstruction are tested with precision.

Preparing the English paper 2 syllabus

Make a reading list from the genre units and divide it by period. For each period, note the major authors, their key works with approximate dates, and one line on what each work is about. Chronology and matching questions reward exactly that kind of table.

For language and English in India, a single standard history of the English language and a basic linguistics text cover most questions. For research methods, learn the main citation styles and the stages of a research paper.

UGC NET Hindi syllabus paper 2: unit list

Hindi (code 20) is answered in Hindi. Its ten units, as named in the official document, are:

1. हिंदी भाषा और उसका विकास
2. हिंदी साहित्य का इतिहास
3. साहित्यशास्त्र
4. वैचारिक पृष्ठभूमि
5. हिंदी कविता
6. हिंदी उपन्यास
7. हिंदी कहानी
8. हिंदी नाटक
9. हिंदी निबंध
10. आत्मकथा, जीवनी तथा अन्य गद्य विधाएं

In plain terms: the language and its growth along with Devanagari; the periods of Hindi literature from the Adikal to the modern age; Indian poetics (rasa, alankar, dhvani, vakrokti) and Western critics; the ideas behind modern Hindi writing, such as the Hindi renaissance and the Khari Boli movement; and then prescribed works in poetry, novels, stories, plays, essays and other prose forms such as memoirs and biographies.

Getting the Hindi paper under control

Units 5 to 10 name specific texts, so the paper often asks which writer wrote a given work, which character belongs to which novel, or which period a poet belongs to. Build one chart per unit with the work, author, year and two lines on theme. The history unit links them all together, so read it early.

Unit 3 needs separate effort. Learn each school of Indian poetics with its founder and core idea, then do the same for the Western critics listed, because questions often mix the two. For Hindi medium aspirants, it helps to read the prescribed stories and plays in full rather than only summaries, since extracts appear as questions.

A three month routine for Paper 2

• Weeks 1 to 4: cover four units, choosing the ones you studied least during your master's degree first.
• Weeks 5 to 8: cover the remaining six units with short notes per unit.
• Weeks 9 to 12: one unit test daily, plus a full 150 question mock with Paper 1 every Sunday, under the 3 hour limit.

Old question papers on the NTA site show how each unit gets tested, and our guide to UGC NET previous year papers suggests ways to work through them. To see what total scores have been enough in past cycles, see the UGC NET cut off tables, and for both papers on one page, the UGC NET syllabus overview.