A direct breakdown of how Biochemistry, Botany and Zoology split between their two core sub-topics, built from 471 real GATE-XL questions across 8 papers.
GATE-XL (GATE Life Sciences) splits its syllabus across several subjects, and three of them, Biochemistry, Botany and Zoology, are each really a contest between just two sub-topics. Every question across 157 questions per subject, drawn from 8 usable official papers (2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2021 to 2024; 2017 and 2020 were excluded for unreadable source PDFs), was classified into its sub-topic and tallied. The result is a clear, measured picture of which sub-topic actually dominates in each subject.
Real sub-topic split, subject by subject
Each bar is 100% of that subject’s questions, split into its two sub-topics.
The full table
| Subject | Sub-topic | Real exam share |
|---|---|---|
| Biochemistry | Biomolecules | 80.3% |
| Metabolism | 19.7% | |
| Botany | System Physiology – Plant | 78.3% |
| Diversity of Life Forms | 21.7% | |
| Zoology | System Physiology – Animal | 86% |
| Diversity of Life Forms | 14% |
How to use this
- Biochemistry: Biomolecules first, by about 4 to 1Protein and enzyme structure, amino acids, nucleic acid chemistry, carbohydrates and lipids are worth far more exam time than memorising metabolic pathways alone.
- Botany: plant physiology first, by nearly 4 to 1System Physiology (plant water relations, photosynthesis, hormones, mineral nutrition) outweighs classification and diversity. Taxonomy and phyla are worth knowing, but shouldn’t dominate your Botany preparation.
- Zoology: the most skewed, about 6 to 1Animal physiology (circulation, excretion, nervous and endocrine systems, reproduction) outnumbers animal diversity and classification content on real papers.
- Weight revision toward the majority sub-topicThe 78–86% side of each split is where most of the real exam credit sits.
Methodology
Every Biochemistry, Botany and Zoology question in the 8 papers below was read individually and classified into its subject’s two sub-topics, then tallied (157 questions per subject, 471 in total). The papers are text-extractable PDFs, sourced via pathfinderacademy.in; 2017 (image-only) and 2020 (corrupted text extraction) were excluded from the last 10 years.
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