Previous Year Questions (PYQ Bank)

Overview

The PYQ bank lives inside the broader question bank (Code QuestionBank table) — PYQs are identified by isPYQ: true. They're shared platform-wide so any tutor or student can reference them; only approvalStatus: APPROVED items show up in the browse view.

Browsing the bank

1. Open Dashboard → PYQ bank.
2. Pick an exam to focus on — the filters below adjust accordingly.
3. Each question card shows the question text, options (for MCQ), correct answer (collapsed by default), explanation, and the metadata tags.

Results are paginated 20 per page (max 50). Sort is pyqYear DESC then createdAt DESC — newest questions for the most recent paper come first.

Filters

• exam — JEE_MAIN, NEET, CAT, UPSC, GATE, etc.
• year — single year, e.g. 2024.
• yearFrom, yearTo — range, e.g. 2020 → 2024.
• subject, topic — narrow to chapter-level.
• grade — for school-board PYQs.
• difficulty — EASY / MEDIUM / HARD.

All filters are AND-combined. Empty filter values are ignored. Question tags also include bloomLevel and pyqPaper (e.g. "Paper 1", "Paper 2") for further focus.

Approval & quality

Questions sit in approvalStatus: PENDING until a moderator reviews them. The browse view only returns APPROVED items, so:

• You won't see your contribution immediately — give the moderation team a day.
• You won't see low-quality or duplicate questions; rejects are filtered out.

Practising a PYQ

1. Click any PYQ to open the practice view.
2. Pick your answer. The runner reveals the correct answer and explanation only after you submit.
3. If you got it wrong, click Add to error book — the entry tags itself with source: "PYQ" and your subject/topic/grade.

Importing PYQs into a test

Tutors and institutions can pull PYQs into their own tests in two ways:

• From the test editor — the question picker has a PYQ tab. Apply the same filters as the browse view to find the right batch of questions.
• Bulk import — for mock series, use the bulk picker to grab "all NEET 2024 Physics questions" in one click.

Imported PYQs reference the original QuestionBank row; edits to the canonical question (e.g. answer-key fix) propagate to every test that uses it.

Contributing PYQs

Tutors can submit PYQs from Tutor dashboard → Question bank → New PYQ. Required:

• The question text, options, correct answer, and explanation.
• isPYQ: true, plus pyqExam and pyqYear.
• Subject, topic, and ideally bloomLevel.

Submitted items go to the moderation queue with status PENDING. Approved contributions stay attributed to you in metadata; the question itself is shared.