NEW DELHI: It was sheer relief for 20.8 lakh students and their families on Sunday after the decider to get selected for medical undergraduate courses concluded. Anxious parents stood patiently outside tightly guarded NEET-UG exam centres for over three hours until their children stepped out after 5 pm.
The exam, comprising 180 questions, 45 each in Chemistry, Physics, Botany, and Zoology is assessed for 720 marks, with four marks per correct answer. A negative marking of one is given for every wrong response. A total of 480 students attended the exam at Kendriya Vidyalaya-4 in Delhi’s Cantonment area. This newspaper caught up with a few candidates after their exam. A recurring response was that the Physics paper completely caught them off guard, as the questions were quite tough and a minute was just not enough.
Pawni Singh said, “The Physics questions were totally unexpected. Most of us had enough knowledge about Circuits, but questions on Alternating Current had appeared. I found the paper tough.” A student requesting anonymity said, “The Physics questions required a lot of calculations. One minute was just not enough to answer one question. So, I ended up leaving many in this section blank to avoid negative marking. It might be the case with many other students too, so I expect the cut-off to be much lower than 600 this year.”
Siva Shree’s mother was completely relieved it was over. “My mother stayed awake with me for many nights at a stretch to help me study for the exam. I found Biology easy and on expected lines. Maybe, if I had practiced better, I could have done well in Physics. Still, I feel I might get into a private medical college,” Siva Shree said.
Neerja Arup, attempting the exam for the second consecutive year said that the questions were lengthy and the paper was tough too. “It was quite easy last time, but unfortunately, it was marred by malpractice. I have less expectation of scoring high this time,” she said. Many on social media opined that the cut-off would definitely be lower than previous years, as the paper was tough.