Howlers in JEE-2011, scream candidates

Updated on: Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Every year the IITs conduct one of the toughest competitive exams in the world to select the country’s best brains. The expectation of such an enterprise is an infallible selection procedure. But for the second year in a row, one of the question papers for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) was found to contain errors.

On Sunday, several students came out of their test centres after the first paper angrily shouting that three maths questions were wrong. “Two questions on matrices (question numbers 55 and 65 of version number 5) did not have matching answers in the options. In the same version of the paper, question number 69, when solved, gives two answers, neither of which were present in the options,” said Krishna Kumar, CEO of an Andhra Pradesh-based coaching class.

In response to the students’ complaints, IIT-Kanpur director Sanjay Dhande said he had not received any formally, but would look into the matter and “justice would be done” if the questions were found to be indeed vague or incorrect.

Overall, the candidates were happy about the exam being easy. Praveen Tyagi, proprietor of a Mumbai-based coaching class, said: “Apart from the errors, our students found the papers easier than last year’s.”

The marking pattern remained the same. “Like in 2010, three-mark questions carried a negative marking of one, Two and four-mark questions did not have negative marking,” said Ajay Antony of a coaching institute.

This year, the stakes were higher for 95, 925 students, for whom this was the last chance at JEE, which limits the number of attempts by a candidate.

JEE is a combination of two papers, each quizzing students on physics, chemistry and maths. Arpit Patel (17) found the first paper very easy, but got stuck in the second. “The second paper was a little difficult as chemistry has never been my forte. But the rest of the paper was really good.”

A few found the second paper lengthy. “Maths was tough while the other two were manageable,” said Apeksha Sanganeria (18). “I just hope my result will be good.”

FACTSHEET

    * 10, 000 seats in 16 IITs and Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad
    * 4.85 lakh candidates
    * 1, 051 centres in 131 cities
    * Answer key to be displayed on JEE website on May 15
    * Results to be out on May 25 at 8 am
    * Online course selection to be held from May 30-June 13

Howlers in JEE-2011, scream candidates

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