The season for entrance tests that are gateways to professional courses kicked off with students from across the State appearing for the Common Entrance Test (CET) on Monday.
The CET is being held at 431 centres across the State for admission to various courses, including engineering, Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy and farm sciences. Those who appeared for the mathematics and biology exams on Monday said the latter paper was relatively easy, while the maths paper was easy, but lengthy.
The type of questions were different this time. “The practice papers given by coaching centres were not of much help, as they didn’t include diagram-based questions,” noted Bindu B.R., a student of Vedanta PU College.
A total of 1.94 lakh students had registered for the CET. The competitive exam was initially scheduled on April 23 and 24. However, it was postponed owing to the Lok Sabha polls.
While a few students welcomed the additional time for preparartion, others lamented that this ate into the time they had set aside for preparing for other competitive examinations, such as the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), and other entrance tests conducted by the All India Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK).
Tanisha Kashayap, a student of Deeksha Centre for Learning PU College, was glad that the CET was postponed. “I got more time to study and since the II PU results were already announced, I could focus on preparing for the competitive examinations,” she said.
However, many students said they hoped the II PU results were declared after the CET as the “strict evaluation” of the examination had demotivated them from giving their best in the competitive tests.
Students, who spoke to The Hindu , said while they didn’t specifically prepare for the CET, they did, however, focus on the Joint Entrance Examination, NEET, and the AIIMS examinations. “The CET portion was anyway covered in this. I started preparing for competitive examinations as soon as I started II PU,” said Nithya G, a student of Narayana PU College.
For some students, the CET is a back up. They said they were more focused on preparing for other entrance tests, such as Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) and Birla Institute of Technology and Science Admission Test (BITSAT). “While I want to write CLAT and become a lawyer, my parents want me to pursue engineering. I wrote the CET at their behest,” said Keerthishree V., another second PU student.
