Unit-6→GENETICS

Introduction:

Heredity is a process of transmission of traits from parents to their offspring’s either via asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction. These characteristics or traits are located on the chromosomes in the form of genes. The differences that are shown by the individuals of a species and also by the offspring of same parents are referred as variations. Variations may be harmful, useless and useful. Harmful or useless variations make individuals unfit for the struggle for existence whereas the useful variation is quite significant and make organisms fit in nature.

Chapter Analysis:

This is another of the heavyweight chapters, having grossed a total of 46 questions over the last 11 years. In 5 years out of the 11, more than 5 questions were asked. Hence, it is one of the most important chapter with respect to NEET Biology. Last three years had 16 question asked in total. So, we can easily expect 5-6 questions in the coming papers.
The following bar-graph depicts the year-by-year question analysis over the past 11 years:

The most important topics to be covered in this chapter are:
• Mendel’s Law of Inheritance
• Sex Determination Numericals
• Numericals related to Genetics
• Genetical Disorders and their Symptoms

Tips and Tricks:

Since this happens to be a heavyweight chapter, one must have proper knowledge of all the topics. The following points might help:
1. Be thorough with the NCERT portion. Here is the link to the NCERT PDF version of this chapter:
2. Make Mind Map of the entire chapter for easier revision.
3. Solve the past year paper sincerely and make them at your fingertips and get acquainted with the type of question that can be asked in the coming papers.
4. Practice a large number of questions from this topic and leave no stones unturned to make this chapter one of your strengths.
5. Online video lectures must be looked upon as they will provide interactive animations thereby making the subject matter easier to understand.

Introduction:

DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) is double helical structure that was cracked by Watson and Crick based on the X-Ray crystallography results. Each strand of a DNA helix is composed of repeating units of nucleotides. Nucleotide consists of 3 components; ribose or deoxyribose sugar, nitrogenous base (purines or pyrimidines) and phosphate. There are two types of purines – adenine and guanine Two polynucleotides chains wrap around each other, where the backbone is constituted by sugar – phosphate and bases project inside. The two DNA chains are antiparallel to each other.

Chapter Analysis:

Molecular Basis along with Heredity forms the most scoring chapters in NEET. A total of 48 questions have been taken from the chapter Molecular Basis in the past 11 years. In the last three years alone, 18 questions were asked. Only twice in the 11 years, i.e. in 2011 and 2013, the question count from Molecular Basis of Evolution dipped below 4, while on three occasions it was 6 or above. Hence, it will not require rocket science to expect at least 5-6 questions in the coming paper.
The below given bar-graph depicts the frequency of question being asked in the previous papers:

The important topics to be covered from this chapter are:
• DNA Replication
• Central Dogma
• Transcription
• Genetic Code
• Translation
• Gene Expression and Regulation
• Genome and Human Genome Project
• DNA Fingerprinting

 

Tips and Tricks:

Another of the heavy weighted chapter which requires special attention and devotion to make it one of their own strength. The following points might prove out to be useful:
1. Reading the NCERT will be helpful. Here is the link to the NCERT PDF version of the chapter:
2. Making Flash Cards and Flow Charts will help in quick revision
3. A List of important keywords with their meaning must be maintained
4. All the past year questions must be solved thoroughly