Maharashtra State Board students find NEET slightly tougher than CBSE students

Updated on: Monday, May 06, 2013

Students from the Maharashtra State Board For Secondary and Higher Secondary Education found the first National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test (NEET) slightly tougher than the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) students.

The examination was held on Sunday and about 20,000 students from the city appeared for the test that replaced the Maharashtra Health and Technology Common Entrance Test (MHT-CET), this year. This exam is conducted by CBSE on behalf of the Medical Council of India, for undergraduate admissions to government medical colleges in the country.

While MHT-CET was based on the standard XII syllabus for state-board students, the NEET, introduced this year, is based on standards XI and XII syllabus. Vivek Srivastava, academic head of a coaching class in the city said, "So far, the state board students were preparing for MHT-CET, but this year onwards, the students have a new syllabus to prepare from for the NEET examination, making it slightly difficult for them to attempt the paper. Clearly, CBSE board students had an edge as they have the practice of attempting the entrance test as per NCERT text books that incorporate all the topics expected for NEET."

Overall, students said the paper was good, with chemistry questions slightly difficult. Ritesh Diwekar said, "Physics and biology papers were easy. I found the chemistry paper slightly difficult, but overall, the exam was good."

Another student, Vikrant Joshi, a state board student, said, "Broadly, we knew what the format of the paper would be, but there were some questions that surprised me. I was prepared for the syllabus, yet a bit less confident as it was the first time. However, the paper was within expectations."

Ketan Mane, who also appeared for the exam on Sunday, said, "There were a couple of questions that seemed out of syllabus. About 20% of the paper had difficult questions."

Manas Jain, who teaches chemistry at a coaching class, said, "Overall the paper looked fine. Physics and biology questions were easy as compared to chemistry which was time-consuming. But, most of the paper was as expected."

Maharashtra State Board students find NEET slightly tougher than CBSE students

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