As thousands of students took the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) paper for admissions to IITs across the country, experts said the paper was easier than last year.
Pawan Kumar, Deputy Director of FIIT-JEE, said that most students had found paper-II tougher than paper-I. “Compared to 2016, this year’s paper was definitely easier,” he said.
The previous year, many students and teachers said that components of the JEE (Advanced) were particularly challenging.
Students had begun assembling in centres across the city from as early as 7 a.m. While the first paper ended at 12 p.m., they took up paper-II from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Both papers were for 183 marks each and have Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics.
R. Harish, a student of Bhaktavatsalam Vidyashram, said the Physics component in particular in paper-II was challenging, which made the overall paper tougher than paper-I, which was held in the morning session.
“Most of us pegged the papers to be moderate to difficult. While there were no major changes in the pattern, one new question format was introduced with regard to matrix matching. Even though this was asked the previous year, the question format differed this year,” he said.
The JEE (Main) was held on April 24. Of the 11,86,454 candidates who took up the exam across the country, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) declared over 2.21 lakh candidates as eligible to take the JEE (Advanced).
Among the eligible candidates, 1.71 lakh candidates took up the examination in centres across the country on Sunday.
Cut-off mark
Stating that the cut-off last year was 75 out of 372 marks for the general category, Anand Nagarajan, Head of school division T.I.M.E. Chennai, said he expected the cut-off for the general category to be at around 80 marks this year.
While the results of the State board Class 12 examinations were announced on May 12, students of the CBSE stream are yet to receive official word on the declaration of their board examination results.
The results of the JEE (Advanced) will be declared online on June 11.
