IIT JAM Chemistry About Syllabus Question Papers Instructions

About IIT JAM Chemistry

IITs and IISc are institutions of national importance and are well known, the world over, for quality education in engineering, science & technology and research in frontier areas. The aim of IITs and IISc is to build a sound foundation of knowledge, pursue excellence and enhance creativity in an intellectually stimulating environment. The vibrant academic ambiance and well-equipped research infrastructure of IITs and IISc motivate the students to pursue Research and Development careers in frontier areas of basic sciences as well as interdisciplinary areas of science and technology.

Joint Admission Test for M.Sc. (JAM) is being conducted from 2004 to provide admissions to M.Sc. (Four Semesters), Joint M.Sc.-Ph.D., M.Sc.-Ph.D. Dual Degree, etc. Programmes at the IITs and Integrated Ph.D. Degree Programmes at IISc for consolidating Science as a career option for bright students. These postgraduate programmes at IITs and IISc offer high quality education in their respective disciplines, comparable to the best in the world. The curricula for these programmes are designed to provide opportunities to the students to develop academic talent leading to challenging and rewarding professional life.

Eligibility Criteria

The candidates who qualify in JAM 2020 shall have to fulfill the following Eligibility Requirements (ER) for admissions to IITs.

  • All candidates admitted through JAM should have a Bachelor’s degree.
  • In the qualifying degree, the aggregate marks or CGPA/CPI without rounding-off (taking into account all subjects, including languages and subsidiaries, all years combined) should be at least 55% or 5.5 out of 10 for General/OBC (NCL)/EWS category candidates and 50% or 5.0 out of 10 for SC/ST and PwD category candidates.

If CGPA/CPI is on a different scale, it would be linearly mapped to a scale on 10.

At the time of admission, all admitted candidates will have to submit a Physical Fitness certificate from a registered medical practitioner in the prescribed form. At the time of admission, the admitted candidates may also have to undergo a Physical Fitness test by a medical board constituted by the Admitting Institute. In case a candidate is not found physically fit to pursue his/her chosen course of study, his/her admission is liable to be cancelled.

Notes:

  1. It is entirely the responsibility of the Candidate to prove that he/she satisfies the Minimum Educational Qualifications (MEQs) and Eligibility Requirements (ERs) for Admission.
  2. The Admitting Institute has the right to cancel, at any stage, the admission of a candidate who is found to have been admitted to a course to which he/she is not entitled, being unqualified or ineligible in accordance with the rules and regulations in force.

Chemistry (CY) Syllabus Download PDF

Physical Chemistry

Atomic and Molecular Structure: Planck’s black body radiation, Photoelectric effect, Bohr’s theory, de Broglie postulate, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle; Schrödinger’s wave equation (including mathematical treatment), postulates of quantum mechanics, normalized and orthogonal wave functions, its complex conjugate (idea of complex numbers) and significance of Ѱ2 ; Operators; Particle in one-dimension box, radial and angular wave functions for hydrogen atom, radial probability distribution; Finding maxima of distribution functions (idea of maxima and minima), energy spectrum of hydrogen atom; Shapes of s, p, d and f orbitals; Pauli’s Exclusion Principle; Hund’s rule of maximum multiplicity.
 
Gaseous State:
 Kinetic molecular model of a gas: collision frequency; collision diameter; mean free path and viscosity of gases; Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution: molecular velocities, law of equipartition of energy, molecular basis of heat capacities; Ideal gases, and deviations from ideal gas behaviour, van der Waals equation of state; critical state, law of corresponding states.


Liquid State: Physical properties of Liquid, vapour pressure, surface tension and co-efficient of viscosity and their applications; effect of concentration of solutes on surface tension and viscosity; effect of temperature on viscosity of liquids.  


Solid State: Unit Cells, Miller indices, crystal systems and Bravais Lattices, elementary applications of vectors to crystal systems; X-ray diffraction, Bragg’s Law, Structure of NaCl, CsCl, and KCl, diamond, and graphite; Close packing in metals and metal compounds, semiconductors, insulators; Defects in crystals, lattice energy; isomorphism; heat capacity of solids.
 
Chemical Thermodynamics: Mathematical treatment: Exact and in-exact differentials, partial derivatives, Euler’s reciprocity, cyclic rule; Reversible and irreversible processes; Laws of thermodynamics, thermochemistry, thermodynamic functions, such as enthalpy, entropy, and Gibbs free energy, their properties and applications; Partial molar quantities, dependence of thermodynamic parameters on composition, Gibbs Duhem equation, chemical potential and its applications.
 
Chemical and Phase Equilibria: Law of mass action; Kp, Kc, Kx and Kn; Effect of temperature on K; Le-Chatelier principle; Ionic equilibria in solutions; pH and buffer solutions; Salt hydrolysis; Solubility and solubility product; Acid – base titration curves; Indicators; Dilute solutions; Raoult’s and Henry’s Laws and their applications; Colligative properties; Gibbs phase rule; Phase equilibria; single and two-component phase diagrams.
 
Electrochemistry: Conductivity, equivalent and molar conductivity and their properties; Kohlrausch law; DebyeHückelOnsager equation; Ionic velocities, mobilities, transference numbers; Applications of conductance measurement; Quantitative aspects of Faraday’s laws of electrolysis, applications of electrolysis in metallurgy and industry; Electromotive force of a cell, Nernst equation; Standard electrode potential, Electrochemical series; Concentration cells with and without transference; Applications of EMF measurements including potentiometric titrations.
 
Chemical Kinetics: Order and molecularity of a reaction, differential and integrated form of rate expressions - basic ideas of integration and differentiation; Kinetics of opposing, parallel, and consecutive reactions; Steady state approximation in reaction mechanisms; Chain reactions; Uni-molecular reaction (Lindemann mechanism); Temperature dependence of reaction rates, Arrhenius equation; activation energy; Collision theory of reaction rates; Types of catalysts, specificity and selectivity, mechanisms of catalyzed reactions at solid surfaces; Enzyme catalysis (Michaelis-Menten mechanism, Double reciprocal plot), Acid-base catalysis.
 
Adsorption: Gibbs adsorption equation; adsorption isotherm; types of adsorption; surface area of adsorbents; surface films on liquids. 

Spectroscopy: Beer-Lambert law; fundamental concepts of rotational, vibrational, electronic and magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Organic Chemistry

Basic Concepts in Organic Chemistry and Stereochemistry: Electronic effects (resonance, inductive, hyperconjugation) and steric effects and its applications (acid/base property); optical isomerism in compounds with and without any stereocenters (allenes, biphenyls); conformation of acyclic systems (substituted ethane/n-propane/n-butane) and cyclic systems, substituted cyclohexanes, and polycyclic (cis and trans decalins) systems. 

Organic Reaction Mechanism and Synthetic Applications: Chemistry of reactive intermediates (carbocations, carbanions, free radicals, carbenes, nitrenes, benzynes); nucleophilic substitution, elimination reactions and mechanisms; Hofmann-Curtius-Lossen rearrangement, Wolff rearrangement, Simmons-Smith reaction, Reimer-Tiemann reaction, Michael reaction, Darzens reaction, Wittig reaction and McMurry reaction; Pinacolpinacolone, Favorskii, benzilic acid rearrangement, Baeyer-Villeger reaction; oxidation and reduction reactions in organic chemistry; Organometallic reagents in organic synthesis (Grignard, organolithium , organocopper and organozinc (Reformatsky only); Diels-Alder, electrocyclic and sigmatropic reactions; functional group inter-conversions and structural problems using chemical reactions.

Qualitative Organic Analysis: Identification of functional groups by chemical tests; elementary UV, IR and 1H NMR spectroscopic techniques as tools for structural elucidation of simple organic molecules. 

Natural Products Chemistry: Chemistry of alkaloids, steroids, terpenes, carbohydrates, amino acids, peptides and nucleic acids. 

Aromatic and Heterocyclic Chemistry: Monocyclic, bicyclic and tricyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and monocyclic compounds with one hetero atom: synthesis, reactivity and properties, aromaticity; Electrophilic and nucleophilic aromatic substitution reactions. 

Inorganic Chemistry

Periodic Table: Periodic classification of elements, Aufbau’s principle, periodicity; Variations of orbital energy, effective nuclear charge, atomic, covalent, and ionic radii, ionization enthalpy, electron gain enthalpy, and electronegativity with atomic number, electronic configuration of diatomic molecules (first and second row elements).


Extractions of Metals: General methods of isolation and purification of elements; Principles and applications of Ellingham diagram.  
 
Chemical Bonding and shapes of molecules: lonic bond: Packing of ions in crystals, radius ratio rule, Born-Landé equation, Kapustinskii expression, Madelung constant, Born-Haber cycle, solvation energy, polarizing power and polarizability; Fajan’s rules; Covalent bond: Lewis structure, valence bond theory. Hybridization, molecular orbital theory, molecular orbital diagrams of diatomic and simple polyatomic molecules and ions; Multiple bonding (σ and π bond approach) and bond lengths; van der Waals forces, ion-dipole forces, dipole-dipole interactions, induced dipole interactions, instantaneous dipole-induced dipole interactions, hydrogen bonding; Effect of intermolecular forces on melting and boiling points, solubility energetics of dissolution process; Bond dipole, dipole moment, and molecular polarizabilities; VSEPR theory and shapes of molecules; ionic solids. 

Main Group Elements (s and p blocks): Reactions of alkali and alkaline earth metals with oxygen, hydrogen and water; Alkali and alkaline earth metals in liquid ammonia; Gradation in properties of main group element in a group; Inert pair effect; Synthesis, structure and properties of diborane, ammonia, silane, phosphine and hydrogen sulphide; Allotropes of carbon; Oxides of nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur; Oxoacids of phosphorus, sulphur and chlorine; Halides of silicon and phosphorus; Synthesis and properties of borazine, silicone and phosphazene; Synthesis and reactions of xenon fluorides. 

Transition Metals (d block): Characteristics of d-block elements; oxide, hydroxide and salts of first row metals; coordination complexes: structure, isomerism, reaction mechanism and electronic spectra; VB, MO and crystal field theoretical approaches for structure, color and magnetic properties of metal complexes; Organometallic compounds with metal-ligand single and multiple bonds (such as metal carbonyls, metal nitrosyls and metallocenes); Homogenous catalysis involving Wilkinson’s catalyst. 

Bioinorganic Chemistry: Essentials and trace elements of life; basic reactions in the biological systems and the role of metal ions, especially Fe2+, and Zn2+; structure and function of myoglobin, hemoglobin and carbonic anhydrase. 

Instrumental Methods of Analysis: Basic principles; instrumentations and simple applications of conductometry, potentiometry and UV-vis spectrophotometry; analyses of water, air and soil samples. 

Analytical Chemistry: Principles of qualitative and quantitative analysis; Acid-base, oxidation- reduction and complexometric titrations using EDTA; Precipitation reactions; Use and types of indicators; Use of organic reagents in inorganic analysis; Radioactivity, nuclear reactions, applications of isotopes; Mathematical treatment in error analysis, elementary statistics and probability theory. 

Previous Year Question Papers

IIT JAM Chemistry 2017 Question Paper pdf

Question Paper Solution

IIT JAM Chemistry 2018 Question Paper pdf

Question Paper Solution

IIT JAM Chemistry 2019 Question Paper pdf

Question Paper Solution

IIT JAM Chemistry 2020 Question Paper pdf

Question Paper Solution

IIT JAM Chemistry 2021 Question Paper pdf

Question Paper Solution

Paper Specific Instructions

The examination is of 3 hours duration. There are a total of 60 questions carrying 100 marks. The entire paper is divided into three sections, A, B and C. All sections are compulsory. Questions in each section are of different types.

  1. Section – A contains a total of 30 Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ). Each MCQ type question hasfour choices out of which only onechoice is the correct answer. Questions Q.1 – Q.30 belong to this section and carry a total of 50 marks. Q.1 – Q.10 carry 1 mark each and Questions Q.11 – Q.30 carry 2 marks each.
  2. Section – B contains a total of 10 Multiple Select Questions (MSQ). Each MSQ type question is similar to MCQ but with a difference that there may be one or more than one choice(s) that are correct out of the four given choices. The candidate gets full credit if he/she selects all the correct answers only and no wrong answers.Questions Q.31 – Q.40 belong to this section and carry 2 marks each with a total of 20 marks.
  3. Section – C contains a total of 20 Numerical Answer Type (NAT) questions. For these NAT type questions, the answer is a real number which needs to be entered using the virtual keyboard on the monitor. No choices will be shown for these type of questions. Questions Q.41 – Q.60 belong to this section and carry a total of 30 marks. Q.41 – Q.50 carry 1 mark each and Questions Q.51 – Q.60 carry 2 marks each.  

In all sections, questions not attempted will result in zero mark. In Section – A (MCQ), wrong answer will result in NEGATIVE marks. For all 1 mark questions, 1/3 marks will be deducted for each wrong answer. For all 2 marks questions, 2/3 marks will be deducted for each wrong answer. In Section – B (MSQ), there is NO NEGATIVE and NO PARTIAL marking provisions. There is NO NEGATIVEmarking in Section – C (NAT) as well.

Only Virtual Scientific Calculator is allowed. Charts, graph sheets, tables, cellular phone or otherelectronic gadgets are NOT allowed in the examination hall.

Paper for rough work will be provided.

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