About 6,000 students took the Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) in 12 centres across the city on Sunday. A total of 4.72 lakh students appeared for the examination all over the country.
This year’s examination pattern did not spring too many surprises. The only minor changes were the absence of negative marking in two sections and a partial marking system (marks based on the number of right choices) in the multiple right answer questions.
Explaining the rationale behind the removal of negative marking in some sections, T. S. Natarajan, organising chairman, JEE 2010, said, “Students who study so hard end up getting frustrated when they get negative marks on something. We do not want to stretch it beyond a point and want to move towards a system in which the effect of negative marking is minimised.”
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The testing followed the same kind of pattern that has been adopted over the past four years with questions from the following categories — multiple choice, assertion and reasoning, reading comprehension and match the following.
Ajay Antony, course director, IIT-JEE, TIME, said: “The integer type questions in maths were especially tough.”
Suchit Vasudevan, one of the test takers, said: “Maths was twice as hard as the last year paper that we took during mock exams. It was a good mix of conceptual and numerical questions. But there were some questions that you have a look at and you are absolutely clueless.”
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Pointing out that most students found the mathematics paper time consuming, K.K. Anand, founder and director of SMART Institute, said that it might result in the cut-off coming down in comparison to last year.
The results of the examination will be out in the last week of May.
“The counselling and seat allotment process will go online this year,” said Mr. Natarajan.
General candidate students can select their course from the convenience of their homes. However, students availing themselves of the quota will have to go in person to show proof of identity.
Students will be able to fill in their preference of courses and college online, and seats will be offered in order of rank and preference. It will be held between May 27 and June 9.