BENGALURU: Around 1.45 lakh students wrote NEET UG exams conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Sunday across Karnataka. It was held in a single session from 2pm to 5pm.
NEET UG exams are conducted for students who aspire to pursue medical stream, including MBBS, BDS and allied medical courses. These exams are conducted across the country and the question paper carries 180 questions with a total of 720 marks. Wrong answers carry a penalty of reduction in marks allotted for right answers.
This year, students as well as faculty members of coaching institutes highlighted that the questions were lengthy statement-based and match-the-following types. Physics had a calculation heavy section, while chemistry, biology, botany and zoology sections had questions from NCERT that could be solved easily but were time-consuming as they were lengthy.
Jeevith Gowda, who wrote the NEET UG exam, said, “The paper was very lengthy, with multiple statements in each question paper. Reading these statements and arriving at a conclusion of which one is the right answer, took some time. Otherwise the paper was neither easy nor difficult. I am expecting a good score. Though I wrote CET also recently, I am aiming for a medical seat.”
Likith NR from Parishrama NEET Academy said, “I am aiming to score more than 700. Since I have attended a lot of mock tests, I was able to attempt all the questions in Biology, but couldn’t attempt one question each in Chemistry and Physics. The paper was lengthy and moderately difficult. It was lengthy because each question has multiple statements and after reading each statement, we must conclude with the right answer.”
Hanumanth Rao, a Chemistry faculty at a private institute, said, “Since last year, NTA has been framing questions that usually consume a lot of time to read, analyse and arrive at an answer. Only a student who has read up well and has a deep knowledge of the subject can solve the questions and manage time as well. After analysing the Chemistry paper, I understood it was lengthy with the same long form statement format questions.”
Chinna, a faculty at Parishrama, said, “We know it was lengthy and moderately tough but are aiming to score more than 700. At least five students from our institute will be able to achieve good results.”
Two students arrive late
Two students whose exam centre was RC College of Commerce and Management in Bengaluru were sent back by college authorities for failing to arrive on time.
Despite NTA specifying that candidates must be at the exam centre two hours prior to the exam start time, one girl arrived at 1.50pm, while frisking and other procedures were completed at 1.30pm. Asked why she was late, she blamed Bengaluru’s traffic.
Another student who arrived early at the exam centre, went to Majestic to get his passport size photos and arrived late. The student wasn’t allowed to write the exam.