Name Reactions for NEET: 30 in NCERT, 11 in the Syllabus
Name reactions for NEET are the organic reactions you know by a label (Wurtz, Cannizzaro, Gabriel) rather than by a mechanism, and the list you need is shorter and more definite than most revision sheets suggest. The official NEET (UG) syllabus names exactly 11 of them. The NCERT Class 11 and Class 12 Chemistry books teach 19 more by name, inside the same units. That makes 30 name reactions for NEET, plus 5 named tests. This guide lists all of them with the reagent, the product and the chapter, straight from the books.
What are name reactions for NEET, and why do they matter?
A name reaction is an organic reaction that carries the name of the chemist who reported it, or a fixed label, so that one word stands for a whole reagent and product pair. "Cannizzaro" means an aldehyde with no alpha hydrogen, heated with concentrated alkali, splitting into an alcohol and a carboxylic acid salt. One word, three facts. That is why name reactions for NEET are worth learning as labels at all.
That compression is the whole point. The NEET paper gives you 45 Chemistry questions worth 180 marks, all multiple choice, inside a 180-minute paper with 180 questions in total, according to the NEET (UG) 2026 Information Bulletin. Those 180 marks are 25% of the 720 on offer. Organic questions often hand you a reagent pair and ask for the product. If "Zn-Hg and concentrated HCl" instantly reads as "Clemmensen, carbonyl to CH2", you save the minute you would have spent reasoning it out.
The other reason name reactions for NEET matter is negative marking. A wrong answer costs one mark, so a half-remembered reagent is worse than leaving the question blank. Our guide to NEET negative marking works through that arithmetic.
Which name reactions does the NEET syllabus actually list?
The current syllabus is the one the National Medical Commission's Undergraduate Medical Education Board issued on 22 December 2025 for NEET (UG) 2026, circulated by NTA as a public notice with the syllabus annexure. Organic Chemistry runs from Unit 13 to Unit 20. Read the text unit by unit and only two of those units, 15 and 17, print reaction names at all. Those are the name reactions for NEET that the exam's own document spells out.
| Syllabus unit | Reaction named in the syllabus text | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Unit 15, Hydrocarbons | Markovnikov addition | HX adds to an unsymmetrical alkene so the negative part goes to the carbon with fewer hydrogens |
| Unit 15, Hydrocarbons | Peroxide effect (Kharash effect) | With peroxide, HBr adds the other way round; NCERT says this happens with HBr only, not HCl or HI |
| Unit 15, Hydrocarbons | Ozonolysis | Ozone adds to an alkene; the ozonide is cleaved by Zn and water into smaller carbonyl compounds |
| Unit 15, Hydrocarbons | Friedel-Crafts alkylation | Benzene plus alkyl halide with anhydrous AlCl3 gives an alkylbenzene |
| Unit 15, Hydrocarbons | Friedel-Crafts acylation | Benzene plus an acyl halide or acid anhydride with AlCl3 gives an acyl benzene (an aromatic ketone) |
| Unit 17, Phenols | Reimer-Tiemann reaction | Phenol, chloroform and NaOH put a CHO group at the ortho position, giving salicylaldehyde |
| Unit 17, Aldehydes and Ketones | Clemmensen reduction | Zinc amalgam and concentrated HCl reduce C=O to CH2 |
| Unit 17, Aldehydes and Ketones | Wolff-Kishner reduction | Hydrazine, then KOH or NaOH in hot ethylene glycol, also reduces C=O to CH2 |
| Unit 17, Aldehydes and Ketones | Aldol condensation | Dilute alkali joins two carbonyls with an alpha hydrogen into a beta hydroxy aldehyde or ketone, which loses water |
| Unit 17, Aldehydes and Ketones | Cannizzaro reaction | An aldehyde with no alpha hydrogen, heated with concentrated alkali, gives one alcohol and one carboxylic acid salt |
| Unit 17, Aldehydes and Ketones | Haloform reaction | Sodium hypohalite oxidises a methyl ketone to an acid salt with one carbon less, plus the haloform |
The syllabus also names the Grignard reagent in Unit 17. It is a reagent, not a reaction, so it is not counted here, but it appears in three of the five NCERT chapters below and is worth its own page in your notes.
Units 16 and 18, on halogen and nitrogen compounds, name no reaction at all. They say "general methods of preparation, properties, and reactions". That single phrase is what pulls the other 19 name reactions for NEET in.
Which other name reactions does NCERT teach?
NEET questions are set from the syllabus, and the syllabus says "general methods of preparation, properties, and reactions" for these units. The general methods in question are the ones in the NCERT books. Each of the 19 below is introduced in the current NCERT text (the PDFs are marked "Reprint 2026-27") with the words "this reaction is known as" or a numbered heading.
| NCERT chapter (NEET unit) | Name reaction | Reagent and change, in NCERT's terms |
|---|---|---|
| Class 11, Hydrocarbons (Unit 15) | Wurtz reaction | Alkyl halide with sodium in dry ether gives a higher alkane, best for an even number of carbons |
| Class 11, Hydrocarbons (Unit 15) | Kolbe's electrolytic method | Electrolysis of a sodium or potassium salt of a carboxylic acid gives an alkane |
| Class 12, Haloalkanes and Haloarenes (Unit 16) | Finkelstein reaction | Alkyl chloride or bromide with NaI in dry acetone gives the alkyl iodide |
| Class 12, Haloalkanes and Haloarenes (Unit 16) | Swarts reaction | Alkyl chloride or bromide with AgF, Hg2F2, CoF2 or SbF3 gives the alkyl fluoride |
| Class 12, Haloalkanes and Haloarenes (Unit 16) | Wurtz-Fittig reaction | Alkyl halide plus aryl halide with sodium in dry ether gives an alkylarene |
| Class 12, Haloalkanes and Haloarenes (Unit 16) | Fittig reaction | Aryl halides with sodium in dry ether join two aryl groups together |
| Class 12, Alcohols, Phenols and Ethers (Unit 17) | Kolbe's reaction | Phenoxide ion with carbon dioxide gives ortho hydroxybenzoic acid (salicylic acid) |
| Class 12, Alcohols, Phenols and Ethers (Unit 17) | Williamson synthesis | Alkyl halide with sodium alkoxide gives an ether, symmetrical or not |
| Class 12, Aldehydes, Ketones and Carboxylic Acids (Unit 17) | Rosenmund reduction | Acyl chloride hydrogenated over palladium on barium sulphate gives an aldehyde |
| Class 12, Aldehydes, Ketones and Carboxylic Acids (Unit 17) | Stephen reaction | Nitrile with SnCl2 and HCl gives an imine, hydrolysed to an aldehyde |
| Class 12, Aldehydes, Ketones and Carboxylic Acids (Unit 17) | Etard reaction | Toluene with chromyl chloride (CrO2Cl2) gives a chromium complex, hydrolysed to benzaldehyde |
| Class 12, Aldehydes, Ketones and Carboxylic Acids (Unit 17) | Gatterman-Koch reaction | Benzene with CO and HCl, anhydrous AlCl3 or CuCl, gives benzaldehyde |
| Class 12, Aldehydes, Ketones and Carboxylic Acids (Unit 17) | Hell-Volhard-Zelinsky reaction | Carboxylic acid with an alpha hydrogen, Cl2 or Br2 and a little red phosphorus, gives the alpha halo acid |
| Class 12, Amines (Unit 18) | Gabriel phthalimide synthesis | Potassium phthalimide with an alkyl halide, then alkaline hydrolysis, gives a primary amine (not aromatic ones) |
| Class 12, Amines (Unit 18) | Hoffmann bromamide degradation | Amide with Br2 and NaOH gives a primary amine with one carbon less |
| Class 12, Amines (Unit 18) | Carbylamine reaction | Primary amine with chloroform and ethanolic KOH gives a foul-smelling isocyanide; secondary and tertiary amines do not react |
| Class 12, Amines (Unit 18) | Sandmeyer reaction | Diazonium salt with Cu(I) ion brings in Cl, Br or CN on the benzene ring |
| Class 12, Amines (Unit 18) | Gattermann reaction | Diazonium salt with halogen acid and copper powder; NCERT notes the yield is lower than Sandmeyer's |
| Class 12, Amines (Unit 18) | Coupling reaction | Benzene diazonium chloride with phenol or aniline gives a coloured azo compound |
A few of these appear twice in the books. Wurtz shows up again in Haloalkanes, Sandmeyer is first used in Haloalkanes to make aryl halides, and Friedel-Crafts returns in Ethers (on anisole) and in Amines, where NCERT says aniline does not undergo it. Each is counted once here, so the total of name reactions for NEET stays at 30.
Which named tests sit alongside them?
Five more names are tests rather than reactions. They answer a different kind of question: "which reagent tells these two compounds apart?" The syllabus covers them through the phrases "identification of primary, secondary, and tertiary alcohols", "chemical tests to distinguish between aldehydes and ketones" and the identification of amines.
| Test | Chapter | What it tells apart |
|---|---|---|
| Lucas test (conc. HCl and ZnCl2) | Alcohols, Phenols and Ethers | Primary, secondary and tertiary alcohols, by how fast turbidity appears; tertiary is immediate |
| Tollens' test | Aldehydes, Ketones and Carboxylic Acids | Aldehydes from ketones; aldehydes are oxidised by this mild reagent |
| Fehling's test | Aldehydes, Ketones and Carboxylic Acids | Aldehydes from ketones, by a reddish brown precipitate on heating; aromatic aldehydes do not respond |
| Iodoform test | Haloalkanes; Aldehydes and Ketones | Compounds with a CH3CO group, or a CH3CH(OH) group that oxidises to one |
| Hinsberg's reagent (benzenesulphonyl chloride) | Amines | Primary, secondary and tertiary amines, by what the sulphonamide does in alkali |
Does Unit 20 bring any name reactions back?
Yes, quietly. Unit 20, Principles Related to Practical Chemistry, asks for "the chemistry involved in the preparation of" four organic compounds: acetanilide, p-nitro acetanilide, aniline yellow and iodoform. Two of those are name reactions in disguise.
- Aniline yellow is an azo dye. It is made by a diazotisation followed by a coupling reaction, the last row of the Amines table above.
- Iodoform is the haloform reaction run with iodine, already one of the 11 the syllabus names.
So the practical unit gives you a second route into the same two name reactions for NEET. If you have learnt them once, Unit 20 costs you very little.
How should you learn name reactions for NEET, step by step?
The mistake is learning them as a list of names. NEET almost never asks "what is the Etard reaction?". It shows chromyl chloride and toluene and asks for the product. So every card you make should run from reagent to product, with the name as a label, not the other way round.
- Start with the 11 the syllabus names. They are the safest bets because they are written into the exam's own document. Write each one as reagent, starting compound, product, and one condition that changes the outcome (for example, peroxide present or not).
- Add the 19 NCERT ones chapter by chapter, in the order the books teach them. Read the NCERT paragraph first, then make the card. Our guide on [how to study NCERT for NEET](/blogs/how-to-study-ncert-for-neet-2027/) covers how to read a chapter for this kind of detail.
- Group reactions that do the same job. Clemmensen and Wolff-Kishner both turn C=O into CH2, one in acid and one in base. Gabriel and Hoffmann bromamide both make primary amines, but only Hoffmann loses a carbon. Comparisons like these are where options are built to trap you.
- Mark the exceptions NCERT spells out: Wurtz works best for an even number of carbons, the peroxide effect works with HBr only, Gabriel cannot make aromatic amines, and aniline does not undergo Friedel-Crafts. Exceptions are easy question material.
- Turn the cards into spaced reviews. Our [NEET flashcards guide](/blogs/neet-flashcards/) explains how to space them so they stick, and [NEET notes](/blogs/neet-notes/) shows how to keep reagent and condition pairs in one place.
- Test yourself on mixed questions, not on the list. Previous papers are the best source; see our plan for [NEET previous year question papers](/blogs/neet-2027-previous-year-question-papers/).
Are name reactions the whole of NEET Organic Chemistry?
No, and treating name reactions for NEET as the whole of Organic Chemistry is a common trap. The syllabus for Unit 14 is about reaction types, bond fission, carbocation stability, inductive and resonance effects. Those ideas explain why Markovnikov addition goes the way it does, and why the peroxide effect reverses it. A student who only memorises the outcome is stuck when the question changes the alkene.
Organic Chemistry is also only one of three blocks. In the official syllabus, Physical Chemistry covers Units 1 to 8, Inorganic Units 9 to 12 and Organic Units 13 to 20. Our breakdown of NEET Chemistry questions explains that split and why Chemistry is the second tie-breaker when two candidates finish level. For a full-year plan across all three blocks, see the NEET 2027 Chemistry preparation strategy.
If you want the syllabus in one place across all three subjects, futureMBBS keeps a plain NEET syllabus overview, and its explainer on what the NCERT book is and why NEET leans on it is a good read for anyone new to the board books.
What has changed, and what could change for 2027?
Two things to keep in view.
First, the NCERT books were rationalised, and some topics left the syllabus. Our page on the NEET 2027 deleted syllabus lists what went. Every one of the name reactions for NEET in this guide was checked against the current NCERT PDFs (marked "Reprint 2026-27") and against the NEET (UG) 2026 syllabus text, so none of them is from a deleted section.
Second, NEET (UG) 2027 has no official syllabus or information bulletin yet. When we checked NTA's NEET public notices on 12 October 2026, every notice still related to the 2026 cycle. The 2026 syllabus is the one to revise name reactions for NEET from. If NMC issues a new one, the first thing to check is whether Units 15 to 18 still carry the same wording.
Five mistakes students make with name reactions for NEET
- Learning the name without the reagent. "Rosenmund" is useless if you cannot see Pd on BaSO4 in the options and recognise it.
- Mixing up Kolbe and Kolbe. Kolbe's electrolysis (Hydrocarbons) makes alkanes. Kolbe's reaction (Phenols) makes salicylic acid. Same chemist, two different questions.
- Forgetting the alpha hydrogen rule. Aldol needs at least one alpha hydrogen. Cannizzaro needs none. That single condition decides which of the two happens.
- Missing the carbon count. Hoffmann bromamide and the haloform reaction both lose one carbon. Wurtz doubles it. A wrong count is a wrong option.
- Skipping the tests. Lucas, Tollens', Fehling's, iodoform and Hinsberg are short, high-yield and easy to mix up under time pressure.
Want to see which reagents you actually confuse? NEETsheet is our NEET UG prep app, with NCERT-aligned question sets and timed mocks that show where Organic Chemistry is costing you marks.
Sources
Every reaction, reagent and rule above comes from these official documents, all opened and read on 12 October 2026.
- National Medical Commission, Undergraduate Medical Education Board, "Syllabus for NEET (UG) 2026", 22 December 2025, circulated by NTA (Units 13 to 20 of Organic Chemistry, including the reactions named in Units 15 and 17 and the preparations in Unit 20): https://nta.ac.in/Download/Notice/Notice_20260108180635.pdf
- National Testing Agency, Information Bulletin NEET (UG) 2026 (pattern of the test: Chemistry 45 questions and 180 marks; 180 questions in 180 minutes; marking of plus four, minus one and zero): https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s37bc1ec1d9c3426357e69acd5bf320061/uploads/2026/02/202602231394640855.pdf
- NCERT, Chemistry Part II, Class 11, Unit 9 "Hydrocarbons" (Reprint 2026-27): https://ncert.nic.in/textbook/pdf/kech203.pdf
- NCERT, Chemistry Part II, Class 12, Unit 6 "Haloalkanes and Haloarenes": https://ncert.nic.in/textbook/pdf/lech201.pdf
- NCERT, Chemistry Part II, Class 12, Unit 7 "Alcohols, Phenols and Ethers": https://ncert.nic.in/textbook/pdf/lech202.pdf
- NCERT, Chemistry Part II, Class 12, Unit 8 "Aldehydes, Ketones and Carboxylic Acids": https://ncert.nic.in/textbook/pdf/lech203.pdf
- NCERT, Chemistry Part II, Class 12, Unit 9 "Amines": https://ncert.nic.in/textbook/pdf/lech204.pdf
- NCERT, online textbooks index, accessed 12 October 2026: https://ncert.nic.in/textbook.php
- National Testing Agency, NEET (UG) public notices, checked on 12 October 2026 for any NEET (UG) 2027 notice: https://neet.nta.nic.in/public-notices/
Frequently Asked Questions
The NEET (UG) 2026 syllabus names 11 organic reactions outright. The NCERT Class 11 and Class 12 Chemistry books teach 19 more by name inside the same units, making 30 name reactions in total, plus 5 named tests such as Lucas, Tollens' and Hinsberg. Counted from the official syllabus and the current NCERT PDFs.
Start with the 11 written into the syllabus: Markovnikov addition, the peroxide effect, ozonolysis, Friedel-Crafts alkylation and acylation, Reimer-Tiemann, Clemmensen, Wolff-Kishner, aldol condensation, Cannizzaro and the haloform reaction. NTA publishes no chapter weightage, so no official source ranks the rest. Learn the 19 NCERT ones after these.
For the list of name reactions for NEET, yes. The syllabus wording "general methods of preparation, properties, and reactions" points to what NCERT teaches, and every name reaction in this guide comes from the NCERT Chemistry books. What NCERT alone will not give you is speed, which comes from practising mixed questions under time.
Both start with an aldehyde and a base. Aldol condensation needs at least one alpha hydrogen and dilute alkali, and joins two molecules into a beta hydroxy carbonyl compound. The Cannizzaro reaction needs an aldehyde with no alpha hydrogen and concentrated alkali, and splits two molecules into an alcohol and a carboxylic acid salt.
Write each one as reagent, starting compound and product, with the name as a label, then review the cards on a spaced schedule. Group reactions that do the same job, like Clemmensen and Wolff-Kishner, and note NCERT's exceptions. Then test yourself on mixed previous-year questions instead of rereading the list.
If you are revising name reactions for NEET and the rest of Organic Chemistry, NEETsheet is our app for practice questions and full-length mocks: neetsheet.in.
