CBSE Class 12 Chemistry Previous Year Question Papers with Solutions (2020-2026)

CBSE also keeps the full set of March 2026 Chemistry papers as a ZIP file on its question paper page, with the marking schemes on its marking scheme page.

CBSE Class 12 Chemistry 2026 question paper: chapter-wise marks

Match all 33 questions in the March 2026 Set 1 paper (code 56/1/1) to their units, and each unit total comes out exactly equal to CBSE's 2026-27 weightage:

• Solutions: 7 marks (Q2, 13, 17, 24)
• Electrochemistry: 9 marks (Q5, 23, 33)
• Chemical Kinetics: 7 marks (Q1, 4, 21, 22)
• d- and f-Block Elements: 7 marks (Q3, 15, 32)
• Coordination Compounds: 7 marks (Q7, 19, 30)
• Haloalkanes and Haloarenes: 6 marks (Q9, 18, 28)
• Alcohols, Phenols and Ethers: 6 marks (Q6, 8, 14, 27)
• Aldehydes, Ketones and Carboxylic Acids: 8 marks (Q26, 31)
• Amines: 6 marks (Q10, 11, 29)
• Biomolecules: 7 marks (Q12, 16, 20, 25)

Source: CBSE Class 12 Chemistry question paper 56/1/1 (March 2026) and the 2026-27 curriculum, Gradehunt analysis.

A few things stand out once the paper is laid out like this:

• Organic chemistry (the last five units) is 33 of the 70 marks, the same share the syllabus gives it.
• Four questions need working: the rate change when the vessel shrinks to a third (Q21), a first-order rate constant from pressure data (Q22), the boiling point of benzoic acid that dimerises in CS2 (Q24), and the Nernst equation in both options of Q33. That is 13 marks of calculation, without a calculator.
• Seven questions had an internal choice: Q19 in Section B, Q23 in Section C, both case-based questions and all three long answers. The 16 MCQs, including four assertion-reason items (Q13 to 16), had none.
• The three sets were close to one paper reshuffled. Fourteen of the 17 written questions, 47 of their 54 marks, appear word for word in Sets 1, 2 and 3. The other three keep the topic and change the example: a different mixture for deviation from Raoult's law, different pairs to differentiate in biomolecules, and a different 3-mark question on carbohydrates.

Chemistry paper pattern and time per mark

The 2026 paper kept the five-section layout: 16 one-mark MCQs, five 2-mark questions, seven 3-mark questions, two 4-mark case-based questions and three 5-mark long answers. That is 70 marks in 3 hours, with 15 minutes of reading time before writing starts. Practicals carry the other 30 marks.

Three hours for 70 marks works out to roughly 2½ minutes a mark: about 5 minutes for a 2-mark answer, 8 for a 3-mark answer, 10 for a case-based question and 13 for a long answer. If the MCQs take you 25 minutes rather than 40, spend the spare time on mechanisms and conversions, which are slow to write.

The 2026-27 sample paper and its marking scheme are on cbseacademic.nic.in. The sample paper carries a note that the question paper design and assessment pattern have not changed for 2026-27, so the 2026 board paper is the closest model for the 2027 exam.

How the 2026 marking scheme gives marks

CBSE's 2026 scheme splits even short answers into small pieces. Some examples from Set 1:

• Q17, 2 marks: ½ for naming negative deviation, 1 for the reason (hydrogen bonding between phenol and aniline) and ½ for saying the boiling point rises.
• Q28, 3 marks: ½ for each structure, then ½ for choosing the right compound and ½ for the reason (SN1 or SN2) in each of the other two parts.
• Q30(b), 1 mark: ½ for each crystal field configuration.

So a correct name with no reason usually gets half the marks at most. The scheme's instructions add two rules worth knowing. An error carried into later steps is penalised only once. And if you answer both options of a choice question, both are marked and the higher score counts, though that costs time you need elsewhere. The 2026 scheme also notes that Class 12 answer books were marked on screen for the first time that year.

Which Chemistry previous year papers to solve first

• Write 2026 Set 1 as a full three-hour paper. For Sets 2 and 3, answer only the MCQs and the three changed questions, since the rest repeats Set 1.
• Then do 2025 and 2024. They follow the same five-section pattern as 2026.
• Use 2023 and 2020 for extra questions, chapter by chapter. Treat 2022 the same way, because that year's exam was term-wise and much shorter.
• Mark every paper against the solution part by part, and keep a list of reactions and named reactions you could not write from memory.

The full 2026-27 chapter list is in our CBSE Class 12 Chemistry syllabus guide.

Want every past question on a chapter in one place? Gradehunt's 10 Years Solved Papers (PYQ) for CBSE Class 12 Chemistry sorts the board questions from 2016 to 2026 chapter by chapter, in the 2026-27 syllabus order, with the year on each question and step-wise marks in the solutions.

Past papers for other Class 12 science subjects

Solved past papers for Physics, Maths and Biology are also on Gradehunt.