INI SS Previous Year Question Papers: Download PYQ PDFs With Answers & Solutions

INI SS Previous Year Question Papers

INI SS previous year question papers are the biggest single source of insight into how AIIMS actually tests a super-speciality candidate. It's not just what topics show up, but how a question is framed, how tight the time pressure feels, and how the paper balances your broad speciality knowledge against your sub-speciality depth. For an exam where the syllabus isn't published as a fixed chapter list the way an undergraduate exam's is, the paper itself becomes the syllabus.

That's true for candidates applying to DM Cardiology as much as for someone applying to MCh Neurosurgery or MD Hospital Administration. The previous paper is the closest thing to an official study guide you'll get.

The previous year's question paper for INI SS doesn't mean the same thing here as it does for an exam like NEET UG, where the National Testing Agency eventually makes the paper public. INI SS works differently, and the next section explains why.

INI SS Previous Years Memory-Based Questions with Solutions

A quick note before this section, because it matters: these ten questions are practice questions built to match the INI SS Stage I pattern, topic depth and difficulty level described above — they are not confirmed recalls from any specific INI SS session. As explained earlier, AIIMS has never released an official INI SS paper, and no candidate-recall source for these particular questions has been verified for this article. They're included here to show exactly what an INI SS-style question looks like across different DM and MCh specialities, with full explanations, not to be presented as past-paper material.

Q1. (General Surgery) Which abdominal incision runs parallel to the inguinal ligament, curved slightly higher up, and is classically used for a retroperitoneal approach to the ureter?

A) Chevron / Rooftop incision

B) Modified Gibson incision

C) Melod incision

D) Marval incision

Answer: B) Modified Gibson incision. The Gibson (and modified Gibson) incision is an oblique, muscle-splitting incision made in the iliac fossa, running roughly parallel to and just above the inguinal ligament. It gives extraperitoneal access to the lower and pelvic ureter and the iliac vessels, which is why it's the standard incision for renal transplantation and lower-ureteric surgery. Because the peritoneal cavity isn't entered, it avoids the complications of a transperitoneal approach.

Q2. (Cardiology) Which of the following does NOT produce a continuous murmur due to late diastolic pressure equalisation between chambers — PDA, coronary AV fistula, rupture of sinus of Valsalva (RSOV) into the left ventricle, or a cervical venous hum?

Answer: Rupture of sinus of Valsalva into the left ventricle. A true continuous murmur needs a persistent pressure gradient across both systole and diastole. When a sinus of Valsalva aneurysm ruptures into the right atrium or right ventricle, the aorta stays at higher pressure than the right heart throughout the cycle, giving a true continuous murmur. But rupture into the left ventricle means both chambers reach similar pressure during systole, so the gradient exists mainly in diastole — making the murmur predominantly diastolic rather than continuous.

Q3. (Cardiology — DM pattern) What is the drug of choice for Fascicular VT (Belhassen VT) presenting with RBBB morphology and left axis deviation?

A) Adenosine

B) Amiodarone

C) Verapamil

D) Lidocaine

Answer: C) Verapamil. Fascicular VT arises from the left posterior fascicle and is uniquely verapamil-sensitive because of its calcium-dependent, re-entrant mechanism involving Purkinje tissue — a feature that sets it apart from most other VTs, where verapamil can actually be dangerous. Adenosine targets AV-node-dependent SVTs and is largely ineffective here.

Q4. (Urology) What is the relationship between a catheter's French (Fr) size and its outer diameter in millimetres?

Answer: Outer diameter (mm) = French size ÷ 3. By convention, 1 French unit equals 1/3 mm of outer diameter — an 18 Fr catheter, for example, has an outer diameter of 6 mm. The scale is used interchangeably as "French" (Fr) or "Charrière" (Ch) size.

Q5. (Surgical Oncology — MCh pattern) An incidental T1a gallbladder carcinoma (invading lamina propria only) is found after laparoscopic cholecystectomy, with clear margins. What's the next step?

A) Re-do radical cholecystectomy with segment 4b/5 resection

B) Simple cholecystectomy alone (observation)

C) Adjuvant capecitabine for 6 months

D) Port-site excision and bile duct resection

Answer: B) Simple cholecystectomy alone. T1a disease — confined to the lamina propria — with clear cystic-duct margins is considered cured by the simple cholecystectomy already done; 5-year survival approaches 100%. Radical re-resection is reserved for T1b (muscularis invasion) or higher, where residual or nodal disease risk is significant.

Q6. (General Medicine) A patient with fatigue, easy bruising, pancytopenia, and a bone marrow biopsy showing hypocellularity with fat replacement most likely has which condition?

Answer: Aplastic anaemia. A hypocellular marrow replaced by fat, alongside pancytopenia, is the classic picture of aplastic anaemia — a haematopoietic stem cell failure — as opposed to a hypercellular marrow (AML) or a fibrotic one (myelofibrosis).

Q7. (Gynaecologic Oncology) A 30-year-old nulliparous woman with Stage IA, Grade 1 endometrioid endometrial carcinoma strongly wants fertility preservation. What's the medical management of choice?

Answer: High-dose oral progestins (medroxyprogesterone acetate) or an LNG-IUS. In carefully selected young patients with this exact profile, progestin therapy or a levonorgestrel-releasing IUD with close endometrial surveillance is the standard fertility-sparing approach, reserving hysterectomy for after childbearing or disease progression.

Q8. (Neurology — DM pattern) Which gene expansion mutation is the most common cause of familial ALS combined with frontotemporal dementia (FTD)?

A) SOD1

B) C9orf72

C) TARDBP

D) FUS

Answer: B) C9orf72. A hexanucleotide (GGGGCC) repeat expansion in C9orf72 is the most common identifiable genetic cause of both familial ALS and familial FTD, and can present as a combined ALS-FTD phenotype through shared TDP-43 pathology.

Q9. (Endocrinology — DM pattern) How does finerenone differ from traditional mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists like spironolactone or eplerenone?

Answer: It's a non-steroidal, tissue-specific MRA that recruits co-repressors in the kidney and heart. Unlike steroidal MRAs, finerenone binds differently, distributes more evenly between kidney and heart, and — as shown in the FIDELIO-DKD and FIGARO-DKD trials — gives renal and cardiovascular protection with less hyperkalaemia and none of spironolactone's antiandrogenic effects.

Q10. (Plastic Surgery — MCh pattern) What is the theoretical percentage length gain in a standard Z-plasty when the limbs are transposed at 60 degrees?

A) 25%

B) 50%

C) 75%

D) 100%

Answer: C) 75%. Length gain rises with the transposition angle — about 25% at 30°, 50% at 45°, 75% at 60°, and up to roughly 120% at 90°, though larger angles get progressively harder to transpose. 60° is the most-used angle in practice, balancing gain against feasibility.

Download the Free INI SS Previous Year Question Paper PDF - Memory-Based

The ten questions above are a preview of a larger, 69-question INI SS pattern practice set spanning 18 speciality areas across General Surgery, Cardiology, Medical and Surgical Oncology, Gastroenterology, Urology, Endocrinology, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Dermatology, Rheumatology, Gynaecologic Oncology, Obstetrics, Haematology, Radiation Oncology, and Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Each questions is given with an answer and a full explanation.

Download - INI SS Previous Year Question Papers with Solutions

Are INI SS Previous Year Question Papers Officially Released?

AIIMS doesn't publish the question papers. INI SS Stage I is a computer-based test, which means there's no physical paper to walk out with. AIIMS has never uploaded a post-exam question paper archive on its examination portal (aiimsexams.ac.in, including the INI SS candidate portal at iniss.aiimsexams.ac.in) the way some recruitment exams do. What circulates as "INI SS previous year papers" — whether as PDFs, apps, or coaching-platform question banks — are memory-based papers: questions reconstructed from what candidates recall immediately after walking out of the exam centre, cross-checked against each other and against standard references before being compiled.

Given that AIIMS follows the same practice for INI CET, and NBEMS follows it for NEET SS too. Both computer-based exams require candidates to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and no official paper or answer key ever gets released. None of this makes the memory-based papers less useful. They're compiled by people who were physically in that exam hall a few weeks earlier, which is about as close to the real thing as a super-speciality aspirant is going to get.

INI SS Exam Pattern: What a Genuine Previous Paper Should Reflect

Before you trust any practice set as a stand-in for a real INI SS paper, it helps to know what the actual paper is built like, so you can tell a paper that matches the pattern from one that's just recycled generic MCQs.

The 80 questions in Stage I are generally understood to be drawn from two subjects: one testing the general or broad-speciality knowledge you'd carry from your MD or MS, and one testing depth in the specific sub-speciality you're applying to. This two-pool structure is real and well documented by people who've written the exam. The exact percentage split between the two isn't stated anywhere in the official prospectus. You'll come across specific numbers quoted online.

One INI SS topper has described it as roughly 60% speciality-specific and 40% general medicine, based on her own paper. But treat that as one candidate's experience rather than an AIIMS-confirmed ratio, because other aspirants report the split feeling closer to even. Recent papers are also said to lean more on image-based and case-integrated questions than older ones did. So, don't assume a five-year-old paper looks exactly like this year's.

How to Use INI SS Previous Year Question Papers Effectively

Solving old papers only helps if you use them the right way for what this specific exam rewards and punishes. A few things matter more here than they would for a broader exam:

• Don't let your own speciality overconfidence work against you. Aspirants preparing for their DM or MCh naturally spend most of their time on speciality-depth questions, since that's the part that feels closest to their daily clinical work. But the general/broad-specialty pool still carries real weight, and it's the part candidates most often under-revise. When you solve a previous paper, tag every question by which pool it likely came from, and check whether your accuracy on the general pool is dragging your score down even when your speciality accuracy looks strong.

• Respect the negative marking at an 80-question scale. Losing a third of a mark doesn't sound like much until you realise the paper only has 80 questions total — a handful of guesses can swing your rank meaningfully more than it would on a 200-question paper. Use previous papers specifically to calibrate when to attempt and when to leave a question blank, rather than only to test your knowledge.

• Practise under real-time pressure. Ninety minutes for 80 questions is roughly 67 seconds per question, tighter than it sounds once you factor in image-based or case-vignette questions that take longer to read. Time yourself on every previous paper you solve, not just the ones close to your exam date.

• Use recent sessions over old ones where you have a choice. Given the shift towards more scenario-based and image-based questions in recent sessions, a paper from the last one or two sessions is more representative of what you'll face than one from several years back, even though older papers are still useful for building speciality depth.

• Don't stop at Stage I prep. If you're targeting AIIMS or PGIMER specifically, Stage II — the departmental assessment — carries real weight in your final selection, and previous-year experiences with it are harder to find than Stage I recalls. Talk to seniors from your own department who've been through it recently rather than relying only on written material.

Specialities Covered in INI SS Previous Year Papers

Because INI SS locks you into the speciality you apply for, "the previous year paper" really means dozens of different sub-speciality question sets sitting under one common Stage I umbrella. Broadly, previous papers span:

• DM specialities — Cardiology, Nephrology, Neurology, Gastroenterology, Endocrinology, Medical Oncology, Clinical Haematology, Rheumatology, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Infectious Diseases, and others, depending on which institute is offering the seat that session.

• MCh specialities — Neurosurgery, Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Paediatric Surgery, Surgical Oncology, Urology, GI Surgery, Hand and Microvascular Surgery, and more.

• MD (Hospital Administration) — a smaller, separate track with its own question set, distinct from the clinical DM/MCh papers.

Whichever speciality you're applying for, the general/broad-specialty portion of the paper draws from your original MD or MS syllabus, while the sub-speciality portion goes as deep as current guidelines and recent literature in that field.