UGC-NET 2026: NTA orders re-exam for English, Commerce, Sociology over question paper errors

The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Sunday decided to hold fresh UGC-NET exams for English, Commerce and Sociology after a committee reviewing candidates’ complaints identified multiple issues in the question papers, including spelling and typographical mistakes and questions allegedly repeated from earlier examinations.

“NTA had received several complaints on multiple errors in these papers,” the agency acknowledged.

UGC-NET English, Commerce, Sociology re-exam dates and timings

The NTA announced that the UGC-NET papers for English, Commerce and Sociology will be conducted again in September. English will be held on September 9 from 9 am to noon, followed by Commerce from 3 pm to 6 pm the same day, while the Sociology paper is scheduled for September 10 from 9 am to noon.

The agency said information regarding examination cities, centres and admit cards would be released separately on its official website. Candidates appearing for the re-examination in these three subjects will not have to pay any additional examination fee, it noted.

“The Committee found that the three papers had many factual, typographical, translation errors including misspelt names of prominent scholars, garbled book titles, errors in the stem wording of questions, grammatical errors, gender and number agreement errors, punctuation mistakes, and non-standard coined terms for established concepts, as well as repetition of a significant number of questions previously administered,” the NTA said in a statement.

It added, “The Committee recommended that, in the interest of holding a fair and error-free examination, these three papers should be re-conducted. It has therefore been concluded by NTA that papers carrying such defects do not meet the standards of fairness and error-free examination, and defects of this extent cannot be cured merely by dropping questions after the challenge process.”

NTA releases answer keys for 84 subjects

Earlier today it published the provisional answer keys for 84 subjects covered under the UGC-NET June 2026 examination. Candidates can raise objections between August 16 and 18, with the challenge facility closing at 11:59 pm on August 18. A fee of ₹200 per challenged question will apply, and the payment window will also close at 11:59 pm on August 18, it mentioned.

Candidates were advised to rely only on updates available through the NTA’s official website and verified social media accounts, it said.

The UGC-NET is conducted to assess eligibility for Assistant Professor positions and PhD admissions. It has two papers, with Paper I consisting of 50 questions on areas including teaching aptitude, reasoning and general awareness, while Paper II contains 100 subject-specific multiple-choice questions.

The NTA also announced that candidates who appeared for the Joint CSIR-UGC NET June 2026 can access the provisional answer key and submit challenges.

"Please review the details carefully and use the official portal to submit challenges from 16 to 18 August 2026, up to 11:00 PM," it said.

The Joint CSIR-UGC NET June 2026 examination was conducted in computer-based test (CBT) format on July 17 and 18. The test is used to determine eligibility for the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), Assistant Professor appointments and PhD admissions at institutions across India.