JEE Main 2026 Session 2 concludes; when to expect answer key

The National Testing Agency has concluded the JEE Main 2026 Session 2, with the final shift ending at 6 pm on April 8. The April session was conducted from April 2 to 8, with approximately 11.23 lakh candidates registered for the examination. Admit cards for the session were released March 29 onwards on the official website, jeemain.nta.nic.in.

As per the feedback from students, subject experts, and analysts, the April session was relatively easier compared to the January session, although the overall pattern of difficulty remained similar. Mathematics emerged as the most challenging section across most shifts, followed by physics, while chemistry was considered the easiest.

The overall difficulty trend was observed as;

Maths>Physics>Chemistry.

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The examination was conducted in a computer-based test format, featuring both multiple-choice questions and numerical value-based questions. For BTech, BE courses JEE Main, each shift was held for a duration of three hours, with the paper carrying a total of 300 marks while as BArch (Paper 2A) and BPlanning (Paper 2B) exam conducted on April 7 from 3 pm to 6 pm in a single shift, the paper consisted of 400 marks.

JEE Main 2026 April Session: Marking Scheme

The JEE Main 2026 April session follows the below marking pattern;

• Total marks: 300

• Total questions: 75 (25 per subject)

• Correct answer: +4 marks

• Incorrect answer: -1 mark

• Unattempted question: 0 marks

• Duration: 3 hours

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Paper 2A and 2B for architecture and planning aspirants carried a total of 400 marks including subjects such as aptitude, drawing, and planning. The drawing section in Paper 2A did not carry negative marking. The marks were divided in the following way

JEE Main 2026 Session 2: Answer key

As per the previous trends NTA is likely to release the provisional answer key with response sheets for the JEE Main 2026 April session in the second week of April on the official website, jeemain.nta.nic.in. Candidates can follow the below steps to download the answer key;

• Go to the official website at jeemain.nta.nic.in

• Click on the “JEE Main 2026 Session 2 Answer Key” link and log in using your application number and date of birth or password

• Access your response sheet along with the provisional answer key displayed on the screen

• Download and save the PDF to calculate your expected score

Once the provisional answer key is released, candidates are usually given 2 to 3 days to raise objections if they find any discrepancies.

After reviewing the challenges, the NTA will release the final answer key with necessary corrections, if any. The final answer key is not changed thereafter and is used for the evaluation of answer sheets.

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JEE Main 2026: Session 2 result

NTA will likely release the JEE Main session 2 final result by April 20 as per the official information bulletin. Last year the result was released on April 19. The final result will include the following key details:

• All India Rank (AIR): The candidate’s final position among all unique candidates who appeared across both the January and April sessions.

• Category-wise ranks: Separate ranks for reserved categories such as SC, ST, OBC-NCL, and EWS, which are used during the seat allotment process.

• Best of two scores: For candidates who appeared in both sessions, the higher NTA percentile will be considered as the final score.

• JEE Advanced cutoff: Category-specific percentile required to qualify for the JEE Advanced 2026 exam.

• Qualification status: A clear indication of whether the candidate is eligible to register for JEE Advanced.

• NTA percentile details: Normalised scores for each subject—Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics—along with the overall percentile.

• Candidate details: Personal information such as name, roll number, application number, parents’ details, nationality, and state of eligibility.