🔥 AIR 32 - CSIR NET LIFE SCIENCE JULY 2026 TOPPER with KRITIKA JAIN I BANSAL BIOLOGY

Summary

Kritika Jain discusses how she prepared for and cleared both CSIR-NET and DBT, offering advice to life-science students preparing for competitive exams.

Results and experience

• Kritika cleared CSIR-NET JRF with AIR 32, scoring 151 out of 200 on the final answer key. She also cleared DBT Category I in the same year.
• She had joined a PhD program based on her DBT result, but earning a CSIR JRF had been a long-standing goal since her MSc days.
• Before receiving her final scorecard, she was anxious that an apparently easier paper might lead to a high cutoff. Her estimate based on the answer key was 136, and she worried the cutoff might reach 140.

Preparation lessons and recommendations

• Practise questions consistently. Reading and memorizing content alone is not enough; students need to apply what they learn. Solve questions soon after studying each topic or unit.
• Prepare every unit. Kritika studied all 13 units, while spending extra time on subjects she enjoyed or expected to be useful. She cautioned against skipping units because the exam may emphasize unexpected topics.
• Include numerical questions. Biology students may be inclined to avoid them, but numerical questions can matter. Learn the relevant formulas and practise applying them.
• Do not neglect aptitude. Kritika considered aptitude practice important for improving rank and made sure to work on it.
• Use test series and past questions. She recommends attempting as many suitable tests as possible. Previous-year questions can reveal the types of problems asked, while tests with mixed difficulty help prepare for varied papers.
• Make concise revision notes. Kritika initially made lengthy notes from full lectures and later had to condense them. She recommends making short notes from the beginning and revising them topic by topic or unit by unit.
• Return to difficult material rather than abandoning it. If a topic or unit is hard, review its component topics and revisit anything that remains unclear. Kritika’s broader advice was not to treat any unit as inherently impossible.

Subject focus and the expanded syllabus

Kritika gave extra attention to cell biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry. She especially liked Unit 13, which connected to her MSc in biophysics. Plant biology was a weaker area for her, but she studied it as well.

Her main preparation was for CSIR-NET. For DBT, she added material she said was not then part of the CSIR syllabus, including bioinformatics and bioprocess engineering.

• For bioinformatics, she advised learning which types of data and information belong to which categories. She felt students may be more intimidated by the name than by the questions.
• For bioprocess engineering, she emphasized practising numericals and understanding formulas. Remembering or deriving formulas can make problems manageable, even when the formulas seem lengthy.
• She also recommended preparing for question styles such as the earlier CSIR Part C, since the format of future papers can be difficult to predict.

Notes and resources

Kritika began making notes during her MSc, later joined a library to study, and found that she needed more question practice. She said she had:

• Used YouTube to study bioinformatics.
• Practised previous-year questions for bioprocess engineering.
• Consulted an immunology book whose name is transcribed in the subtitles as “Leni.”

She praised the Bansal Biology test series for including easier and tougher questions, mixed topics, and aptitude practice. She felt this helped her prepare for the exam hall without becoming overconfident.

Speakers

• Host/interviewer: A female teacher from Bansal Biology; her name is not stated in the subtitles.
• Guest: Kritika Jain, a CSIR-NET JRF AIR 32 achiever and DBT Category I qualifier.