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Thermal Properties of Matter is a chapter of small, separate facts: expansion, specific heat, latent heat, calorimetry and heat transfer. Nothing in it is difficult, but it is easy to leave half-learnt, and the paper usually asks the half you skipped. Treat the ten questions below as a check on which half that is. Give them ten honest minutes.
What this chapter carries in NEET(UG)
- Usually 2 to 3 questions every year, which is 8 to 12 marks.
- Calorimetry and latent heat are asked almost every year.
- Thermal expansion and conduction fill the rest.
What the syllabus says
In the syllabus (Unit 7, Properties of Solids and Liquids): Heat, temperature, thermal expansion, specific heat capacity, calorimetry, change of state, latent heat, and heat transfer by conduction, convection and radiation.
Taken out in 2024: Newton’s law of cooling, Stefan’s law, Wien’s displacement law, black-body radiation and the greenhouse effect.
Taken from the NMC syllabus for NEET (UG) 2026, the latest one published. See the full syllabus, unit by unit.
Formulas you must know by heart
| Celsius to Fahrenheit | F = (9/5)C + 32 |
| Celsius to Kelvin | K = C + 273.15 |
| Linear expansion | ΔL = LαΔT |
| Areal and volume expansion | β = 2α, γ = 3α |
| Heat gained or lost | Q = mcΔT |
| Latent heat | Q = mL |
| Latent heat values | ice 80 cal/g, water 540 cal/g |
| Conduction | Q/t = kA(T1 − T2) / L |
| Thermal resistance | R = L / kA |
| Rods joined end to end | resistances add: R = R₁ + R₂ |
| Principle of calorimetry | heat lost by the hot body = heat gained by the cold body |
Keep the two latent heats in your head as numbers, not as symbols. Ice takes 80 calories a gram to melt and water takes 540 calories a gram to boil away, and almost every calorimetry question in NEET(UG) turns on one of those two figures.
Ten questions. Give yourself ten minutes.
Write your answers down before you scroll. A question you looked up is a question you have not answered.
Q1. A temperature of 40°C on the Fahrenheit scale reads
- (a) 72°F
- (b) 104°F
- (c) 100°F
- (d) 98.6°F
Q2. The coefficient of areal expansion β is related to the coefficient of linear expansion α by
- (a) β = α
- (b) β = 2α
- (c) β = 3α
- (d) β = α/2
Q3. A metal rod 1 m long with α = 2 × 10−5 per °C is heated through 50°C. It gets longer by
- (a) 0.1 mm
- (b) 1 mm
- (c) 10 mm
- (d) 0.01 mm
Q4. The latent heat of vaporisation of water is about
- (a) 80 cal/g
- (b) 540 cal/g
- (c) 100 cal/g
- (d) 1 cal/g
Q5. Water has its maximum density at
- (a) 0°C
- (b) 4°C
- (c) 100°C
- (d) −4°C
Q6. The heat needed to raise the temperature of 2 kg of water (c = 4200 J/kg·K) from 20°C to 30°C is
- (a) 8400 J
- (b) 84000 J
- (c) 42000 J
- (d) 4200 J
Q7. 100 g of water at 80 °C is mixed with 100 g of water at 20 °C. The final temperature of the mixture is
- (a) 40 °C
- (b) 50 °C
- (c) 60 °C
- (d) 30 °C
Q8. The mode of heat transfer that needs no material medium is
- (a) conduction
- (b) convection
- (c) radiation
- (d) all three
Q9. Two rods of the same length and the same area of cross section, of thermal conductivities k and 2k, are joined end to end. The equivalent thermal conductivity of the combination is
- (a) 3k/2
- (b) 4k/3
- (c) 2k/3
- (d) 3k
Q10. A metal plate with a circular hole in it is heated. The diameter of the hole
- (a) increases
- (b) decreases
- (c) stays the same
- (d) first increases, then decreases
Answer key, with a hint for each
| Q1 | (b) | F = (9/5) × 40 + 32 = 72 + 32. |
| Q2 | (b) | Area is a length times a length, so its fractional change is twice that of a length. The same logic gives γ = 3α. |
| Q3 | (b) | ΔL = 1 × 2 × 10−5 × 50 = 10−3 m. |
| Q4 | (b) | 540 cal/g for boiling, 80 cal/g for melting. Those two numbers carry most of calorimetry. |
| Q5 | (b) | This is the anomalous behaviour of water. Below 4°C it expands again as it cools, which is why ice floats and ponds freeze from the top. |
| Q6 | (b) | Q = mcΔT = 2 × 4200 × 10. |
| Q7 | (b) | Equal masses of the same liquid, so the heat lost by one equals the heat gained by the other and the final temperature is the plain average. |
| Q8 | (c) | Radiation travels as electromagnetic waves, so it crosses a vacuum. Conduction and convection both need matter. |
| Q9 | (b) | Rods joined end to end add their thermal resistances: L/kA + L/2kA = 2L/kₑA, which gives kₑ = 4k/3. |
| Q10 | (a) | On heating, every length in the body grows in the same proportion, the hole included. The hole expands exactly as a solid disc of the same metal would. |
Now mark yourself honestly
NEET(UG) marks the way it marks. Use the same rule here:
- +4 for a right answer
- −1 for a wrong one
- 0 for a blank
So ten questions here are out of 40. In the real paper, 45 Physics questions are out of 180.
If you scored 32 or more, the basics of this chapter are secure. Move to harder questions, not more of these.
If you scored below 24, do not feel bad about it. You have just found out something useful before the exam did. Go back to the formula table above, learn it properly, and sit these ten again tomorrow.
And if you guessed a few and they landed, count those as wrong. A guess that works once will not work in May.
The full chapter, on a clock
Ten questions tell you a little. Forty-five tell you the truth.
The Beginner paper for Thermal Properties of Matter is waiting for you on the portal: 45 questions, 45 minutes, marked out of 180, with the answer key and a hint for every question. Sit it tonight and you will know exactly where this chapter stands.
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