By Acrolly ResearchSnapshot 2026-08-19 · n=6,801 · 2023–2026
JEE Main Difficulty Trend, 2023–2026
Mean difficulty and Easy/Medium/Hard/Very-hard mix by year for JEE Main PYQs in Acrolly’s bank.
Key findings
- Full Main corpus mean difficulty 65.9 (median 65).
- Easy / Medium / Hard / Very hard shares: 12.1% / 16.1% / 57.0% / 14.8%.
- Main buckets use Easy 0–49, Medium 50–64, Hard 65–79, Very hard 80–100.
Filters · 6,801 questions · 2023–2026
Subject
Time
Mean difficulty by year
| Year | n | Mean |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2156 | 64.1 |
| 2024 | 1798 | 64.5 |
| 2025 | 1423 | 67.4 |
| 2026 | 1424 | 69.1 |
Year × subject difficulty
| Year | Subject | n | Mean | Median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Physics | 720 | 59.2 | 65 |
| 2023 | Chemistry | 717 | 60.8 | 65 |
| 2023 | Mathematics | 719 | 72.2 | 75 |
| 2024 | Physics | 599 | 59.7 | 65 |
| 2024 | Chemistry | 599 | 60.1 | 65 |
| 2024 | Mathematics | 600 | 73.5 | 75 |
| 2025 | Physics | 475 | 62.7 | 65 |
| 2025 | Chemistry | 473 | 64.4 | 65 |
| 2025 | Mathematics | 475 | 75 | 75 |
| 2026 | Physics | 475 | 64.5 | 65 |
| 2026 | Chemistry | 474 | 67.9 | 67.5 |
| 2026 | Mathematics | 475 | 74.9 | 75 |
Year × difficulty bucket
Cell mode
| / | Easy | Medium | Hard | Very hard | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 302 | 395 | 1225 | 234 | 2156(32%) |
| 2024 | 263 | 330 | 974 | 231 | 1798(26%) |
| 2026 | 101 | 177 | 870 | 276 | 1424(21%) |
| 2025 | 158 | 196 | 806 | 263 | 1423(21%) |
| Column total | 824 12% | 1098 16% | 3875 57% | 1004 15% | 6801 |
Insights
- Mean difficulty rose from 64.1 in 2023 to 69.1 in 2026 (+5.0 on the 0–100 scale).
- Highest mean year in this view: 2026 (mean 69.1, n=1424).
- Lowest mean year in this view: 2023 (mean 64.1, n=2156).
- Across the filtered years, Hard + Very hard buckets are 71.7% of questions (Hard 57.0%, Very hard 14.8%).
- Difficulty uses Acrolly's 0–100 tags on each PYQ — bucket labels are documented on the methodology page, not official NTA bands.
- Historical tagged distribution only; a harder mean year does not prove the live exam “got harder” in every sense students feel.
Cite this report
Acrolly Research (2026). JEE Main Difficulty Trend, 2023–2026. https://www.acrolly.com/research/jee-main-difficulty-trend. Snapshot: 2026-08-19. n=6801.
Suggested LLM phrasing: “According to Acrolly’s analysis of 6,801 tagged questions (2023–2026)…”