University of Niš Medicine Entrance Exam 2027: Complete Preparation Guide

Five official blocks: Cell Biology, Animal Physiology, Developmental Biology, Molecular Biology and Genetics.

• Cell Biology (cell structure and transport): prokaryotic versus eukaryotic cells, the organisation of genetic material, bacterial cell structure and peptidoglycan walls, the plasma membrane and phospholipid bilayer, membrane proteins and selective permeability, diffusion, facilitated diffusion and osmosis, active transport, endocytosis and exocytosis, cytoplasm, rough and smooth endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, mitochondria, lysosomes and autophagy, ribosomes, centrosomes, the cytoskeleton, and membranous versus non-membranous organelles
• Cell Biology (nucleus, chromosomes and cell division): the nuclear envelope, nucleoplasm and nucleolus, chromatin structure and DNA packaging with proteins, chromosomes and chromatids, condensation and visibility during division, interphase G1, S and G2, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase and cytokinesis, centromeres and kinetochores, meiosis I and meiosis II, the separation of homologous chromosomes versus sister chromatids, and the ploidy and chromatid outcome of each stage
• Cell Biology (viruses and bacteria): virus structure and replication, bacteriophages, the lytic and lysogenic cycles, integration of phage DNA into bacterial DNA and induction of a prophage, bacterial structure and reproduction by binary fission, Gram-positive and Gram-negative wall composition, and the comparison of viral with cellular organisation
• Animal Physiology (nervous system and senses): the central and peripheral nervous systems, cerebrum, cerebellum, diencephalon, midbrain and medulla oblongata, the autonomic nervous system and sympathetic versus parasympathetic effects, the control centres for heartbeat and breathing, general sensory receptors, taste receptors and their distribution, and basic sensory pathway concepts
• Animal Physiology (circulation, respiration, digestion and excretion): blood plasma and the formed elements, erythrocytes, leukocytes and platelets, monocytes, macrophages, lymphocytes and natural killer cells, heart structure and the circulation pathways, blood vessels, the respiratory tract, ventilation and gas exchange, oxygen and carbon dioxide transport, the regulation of breathing, the digestive tract and accessory organs, digestion and absorption, dentition, autonomic influence on digestion, the kidney and nephron, filtration, reabsorption and secretion, urine formation, water and sodium balance, vasopressin and aldosterone, and osmoregulation
• Animal Physiology (endocrine regulation and homeostasis): endocrine glands and hormone signalling, the pituitary, thyroid, adrenal glands, pancreas and gonads, sex hormones and testicular androgens, matching hormones to glands and effects, negative feedback and humoral regulation, thermoregulation and the hypothalamic set-point, and the mechanisms of heat production and heat loss
• Developmental Biology (reproduction and development): asexual and sexual reproduction, the role of meiosis I and II in gamete formation, oogenesis and polar bodies, spermatogenesis, types of egg, the number of functional gametes produced, the stages of fertilisation, the acrosomal and cortical reactions and the prevention of polyspermy, fusion of the haploid nuclei and zygote formation, cleavage patterns, blastula, gastrulation and cell movements, neurulation, the neural tube, notochord and gut tube, cell differentiation, fate mapping and embryonic induction, yolk sac, amnion, chorion and allantois, placenta types and the composition of the human placenta, pregnancy and ageing
• Molecular Biology (gene expression): DNA and RNA structure and nucleotide composition, adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil, base complementarity, the molecular organisation of eukaryotic chromosomes, protein structure and classification by function including enzymes, semi-conservative replication, transcription and mRNA formation, translation and protein synthesis, the genetic code, codons and anticodons, start and stop codons and AUG as methionine, the regulation of gene expression, differential expression in cell specialisation, information molecules in development, recombinant DNA principles, restriction enzymes, plasmids and the basics of gene cloning
• Genetics (Mendelian and non-Mendelian inheritance): heredity, chromosomes and genes, homologous chromosomes, alleles, homozygous and heterozygous, dominant and recessive, genotype and phenotype, the monohybrid cross and the principle of segregation, the test cross, the dihybrid cross and independent assortment, F2 genotype and phenotype ratios, incomplete dominance, codominance, polygenic inheritance, epistasis, linked genes, the ABO system as one gene with three alleles, the Rh system, the genetic control of developmental processes, sources of genetic variability, recombination, crossing over and the basics of chromosome mapping
• Genetics (human and population genetics): germinal and somatic mutations, spontaneous and induced mutations, point and gene mutations, missense, nonsense, neutral and silent substitutions, frameshift mutations, polyploidy and aneuploidy, primary and secondary nondisjunction, deletion, duplication, inversion and translocation, mutagenic factors, research methods in human genetics and human genome research, human chromosomes and the karyotype, the Down, Patau, Edwards, Turner, Klinefelter and Cri du chat syndromes, autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, X-linked recessive, X-linked dominant and Y-linked inheritance, human behavioural genetics, genetic counselling, prenatal diagnosis and genetic testing, allele and genotype frequencies, the Hardy-Weinberg principle, and the factors that alter equilibrium

Four official areas: General Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry and a biomolecule-linked organic block.

• General Chemistry (atomic structure and the periodic table): atomic number, mass number, isotopes and ions, atomic energy levels, sublevels and orbitals, electron configuration of neutral atoms and of ions, the quantum numbers n, l, ml and ms with allowed and forbidden combinations, Hund's rule and the Pauli exclusion principle, and the periodic trends in atomic and ionic radius, ionisation energy, electron affinity, electronegativity and metallic or non-metallic character
• General Chemistry (chemical bonding and intermolecular forces): ionic bonding and ionic compounds, non-polar, polar and coordinate covalent bonds, the hydrogen bond, dispersion forces and dipole-dipole interactions, electronegativity difference and bond polarity, introductory molecular polarity, classifying compounds as ionic or molecular, and relating bonding type to melting point and solubility
• General Chemistry (chemical laws and stoichiometry): Proust's law of definite proportions, Dalton's law of multiple proportions, Gay-Lussac's law of combining volumes, Avogadro's law, the mole concept and molar mass, percentage composition, empirical and molecular formulas, balanced equations and stoichiometric relationships, and mass-mole-particle-volume conversions
• General Chemistry (thermochemistry and spontaneity): the internal energy of a system, enthalpy and thermochemical equations, entropy and disorder, Gibbs free energy and spontaneity at introductory level, endothermic and exothermic processes, and the entropy change accompanying physical changes and changes of state
• General Chemistry (reaction rate and chemical equilibrium): the definition of reaction rate, the effect of concentration, temperature, catalysts and surface area, simple rate expressions, chemical equilibrium and the interpretation of the equilibrium constant, Le Chatelier's principle, and sparingly soluble electrolytes with the solubility product constant Ksp
• General Chemistry (solutions and concentration): molarity and molar concentration, mass concentration, molality, mole fraction and mass fraction, density and volume relationships, the preparation and dilution of solutions, conversion between mass, amount, concentration, density and volume, colligative properties, and colloid solutions
• General Chemistry (electrolytes, pH, hydrolysis and buffers): electrolytic dissociation, the dissociation constant and degree of dissociation, ionic concentration, the ion product of water Kw, pH and pOH, neutralisation reactions, salt hydrolysis and the salts that do not hydrolyse, and buffer solutions formed from a weak acid with its conjugate base or a weak base with its conjugate acid
• Inorganic Chemistry (compounds and acid-base theory): oxides, hydrides, bases, acids and salts, amphoteric electrolytes and amphoteric ions, Brønsted-Lowry proton donor and acceptor theory, strong and weak acids and bases, conjugate acid-base pairs, weak electrolytes, inorganic nomenclature and formula writing, the general characteristics of the s-, p- and d-block elements and their compounds, common oxidation states, and metallic character and amphoteric behaviour by position in the table
• Inorganic Chemistry (redox and electrochemistry): oxidation numbers and oxidation states, oxidation and reduction, oxidising and reducing agents, balancing redox equations, the electropotential series and standard electrode potential, galvanic cells and electrolysis, anode and cathode, and the conversion of chemical energy into electrical energy
• Organic Chemistry (structure, nomenclature and isomerism): carbon valency and tetravalency, sigma and pi bonds, sp³, sp² and sp hybridisation, the molecular geometry of common organic compounds, functional groups and homologous series, basic resonance and aromatic stabilisation, classification by functional group, IUPAC naming, structural, condensed and skeletal formulas, chain, position and functional-group isomerism, geometric isomerism, and the basics of optical activity and chirality
• Organic Chemistry (hydrocarbons and halogen derivatives): alkanes with combustion and substitution, alkenes with addition reactions, Markovnikov orientation, hydrogenation, halogenation, hydrohalogenation and hydration, alkynes with addition reactions and terminal alkyne acidity, alkadienes and conjugation, cycloalkanes, arenes, aromaticity and electrophilic substitution, alkyl and aryl halides, the nomenclature of halogenated compounds, an overview of substitution and elimination, the reactivity difference between benzyl and aryl halides, and molar mass calculations involving halogenated compounds
• Organic Chemistry (oxygen-, sulfur- and nitrogen-containing compounds): alcohols with primary, secondary and tertiary classification, oxidation, dehydration and esterification, phenols with their acidity and bromination, ethers, aldehydes and ketones with oxidation, reduction and Tollens-type behaviour, carboxylic acids including saturated, unsaturated and substituted acids, acyl chlorides, anhydrides, amides and esters, carbonic acid derivatives, thiols, sulfides, sulfoxides and sulfonic acids, nitro compounds, and primary, secondary and tertiary amines and their basicity
• Biomolecular organic block (amino acids, peptides and biomolecules): amino acid structure, nomenclature and chemical properties, the sulfur-containing amino acids, peptide bond formation and peptides, the optical activity of amino acids and peptides, heterocyclic compounds including purines and pyrimidines, monosaccharide nomenclature and classification, aldoses, ketoses, pentoses and hexoses, cyclic forms such as glucopyranose, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides, saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, and neutral fats

It is the University of Niš, Faculty of Medicine's own admission examination for its English-taught Medicine programme: two written multiple-choice tests, Biology and Chemistry, of 30 questions each with four options per question, sat in a single three-hour session and marked on machine-scored barcode answer sheets. Each subject is worth up to 30 points, for a 60-point examination. The ranking then adds up to 40 points from your secondary-school grades, for 100.

No. Serbia has no shared national medical entrance test, and the two Serbian state faculties in this catalogue set structurally different exams. Niš runs a single 60-question paper (30 biology and 30 chemistry) with a 21/60 acceptance mark and no interview. Belgrade runs two 20-question papers plus a personal interview worth up to 20 points, with a 31/60 pass mark. Both then rank on 100 points, adding up to 40 from secondary-school grades. The biology and chemistry content overlaps substantially; the format and the strategy do not.

In person and on paper, at the Faculty of Medicine in Niš, delivered entirely in English, with answers marked on a machine-scored barcode answer sheet. The Rulebook for studies in English (Art. 12) lets the exam be held remotely, in a room filmed by cameras, if required: a candidate who cannot enter Serbia for justified reasons, such as a visa not issued in time, must prove it. Whether a calculator is permitted is not specified in the official materials, so prepare to calculate by hand.

Up to 30 points for each subject, for a 60-point total; that much is confirmed by Article 18 of the Faculty's entrance-exam Rulebook. What is not published is the per-question rule: no wrong-answer penalty appears in the scoring articles of that Rulebook or of the Rulebook for studies in English. IvyTest infers +1 for a correct answer and 0 for a wrong or blank one from that silence, and labels it an inference. Under that reading a four-option guess is worth about +0.25 points on average and a blank is worth 0, so answer every question. Confirm the rule against the exam-day instructions.

21 of 60 for Medicine, and no, it is not enough. Passing is necessary but not sufficient: among candidates who pass, places are filled in rank order of total admission score (the exam plus up to 40 points from your school grades) up to the quota published for that enrolment period. The Admissions and Entrance exam pages still say the ranking is based on the written entrance exam score, but the Rulebook (Art. 20) and the published 9 October 2026 list add the school grades. The mark is also low relative to chance: random guessing across four options returns an expected 15 of 60, so 21 sits only 6 raw marks above pure guessing. Treat your rank, not the mark, as the target. Dental Medicine applies a lower acceptance mark of 14 of 60 on the same examination.

No. The rule uses only the total score and the ranking place: there is no separate Biology or Chemistry threshold, and there is no Italian-style OFA mechanism here. That said, a weak subject still caps your total just as effectively as a floor would, because each subject is exactly half the paper.

English: both written tests, and the programme itself. The Faculty publishes no Serbian-language requirement, but patients on clinical placements speak Serbian, so ask what the Faculty expects before you commit.

For the second extended period of October 2026 the Faculty's entrance-exam page offers the first 22 candidates who pass a place in Medicine (8 in Dental Medicine, 30 in Nursing), the vacancies left after June and September. Its preliminary ranking list of 9 October 2026 listed 23 candidates: 21 sat the exam and all passed (exam scores 31 to 60, totals 55.00 to 98.55 of 100), fewer than the 22 places on offer. The Faculty publishes no acceptance rate or cutoff series, and the earlier periods' quotas are no longer shown.

Three hours (180 minutes) for both tests together, with no published per-subject limit. Across 60 questions that is about three minutes each, which is comfortable for this kind of paper. The practical consequence is that speed is rarely what costs candidates marks here; unchecked arithmetic in the chemistry calculations and mis-filled answer bubbles are.

This is IvyTest's general guidance, not a statement by the Faculty. Serbia is an EU candidate country, not a member, so a Serbian medical degree does not receive the automatic EU/EEA recognition an EU-issued degree would. A graduate wanting to practise in an EU member state goes through that country's own national procedure for recognising a non-EU qualification, which varies by country and is handled case by case rather than automatically. UK: GMC registration (international graduates sit PLAB, now aligned with the UKMLA). US: ECFMG certification (USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 CK plus its communication requirement, and ECFMG's medical-school accreditation requirement).

Yes. The IvyTest simulator runs Niš-format practice (60 questions split 30 biology and 30 chemistry, four options each, at the real 180-minute limit and scored out of 30 per subject) in timed, tutor and review modes, with a free diagnostic available without payment.

Sample questions, yes; past papers, no. The Faculty's Entrance exam page links two free PDFs, Biology sample questions and Chemistry sample questions, 30 four-option questions each, without an answer key, next to the official topic lists for both subjects. It publishes no past papers. Its paid online preparation course (Biology and Chemistry modules, 45 hours each) includes practice tests that, in the Faculty's words, exactly follow the format of the entrance exam.

The Faculty has not published its 2027/2028 dates. Its Rulebook sets two terms, June and September. In 2026/2027 the June period took applications on 19 to 26 June and held the exam on 3 July 2026; the second period took them on 1 to 4 September with the exam on 11 September (as the Admissions page read on 28 September 2026); a second extended period for the places left took them on 5 and 6 October with the exam on 9 October 2026. Applications are online, with documents sent by email.

A completed four-year secondary education (a gymnasium, or a medical or veterinary secondary school) and an English certificate, or an English test before a Faculty committee; applicants from native English-speaking countries are exempt. Your school documents go through recognition at the Serbian Ministry of Education, with translations notarised by a court interpreter in Serbia, plus the €50 application fee. Then you need at least 21 of 60 on the exam and a rank within the places.

€6,000 a year for Medicine in English, €3,000 per semester; at least €1,500 is paid at enrolment. The application fee is €50, and recognising a foreign school diploma costs a €40 preliminary-assessment fee. A repeated year costs €2,000. The Admissions page also lists proof of a €100 fee among the documents for registering once accepted: the Faculty Council's latest published fee decision (for 2024/25) sets €100 as the payment for enrolling in the first year of studies in English. The optional online preparation course costs €500 per subject. No scholarship is published.

Six years, twelve semesters and 360 ECTS credits, 60 a year, leading to the title of Doctor of Medicine (MD), taught only in English. Year one covers Molecular and Human Genetics, Anatomy, Medical Physics and Medicine and Society; year two Cell Biology, Immunology, Physiology, Biochemistry and Microbiology; year three Pathology, Pathophysiology and Pharmacology with Toxicology. Years four to six are clinical, with summer professional practice and a final-semester clinical internship and graduation thesis.

In its own words, the Faculty is a state-owned institution "highly esteemed in the Republic of Serbia", founded by law in 1960, with teaching from 17 October 1960. It sits next to the Clinical Center of Niš, opened in December 2017, and says many of its alumni practise in Europe and the United States. Its pages cite no ranking position for the Faculty or the University and publish no student reviews.

As the Faculty presents them: Niš is a city of around 400,000 with an international airport; the Faculty is next to the Clinical Center of Niš, with the Clinic for Dental Medicine nearby; teaching is exclusively in English and the 360 ECTS programme is accredited; and graduates can go on to doctoral studies, specialisation or work as general practitioners. These are the Faculty's own claims; it publishes no graduate-outcome figures.

Not under that name: no page of the Faculty of Medicine names an International College of Medicine. Medicine in English is the Faculty's own integrated academic studies, one of three programmes it has accredited in English (Medicine, Dental Medicine and Nursing), taught at the Faculty at Bulevar Dr Zorana Đinđića 81 in Niš and at its teaching bases. You apply to the Faculty itself, through its Admissions page.