THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A few candidates who appeared for the National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA) in the state on Saturday were left high and dry as they lost a good 20 minutes for no fault of theirs while attempting the two-hour-long online test. The test is conducted across the country by the Council of Architecture, New Delhi. The scores in NATA are crucial for admission for undergraduate architecture (B Arch) courses. According to Adarsh K G, a candidate who took the test at Nehru College, Pampady in Thrissur, the system showed ‘invalid credentials’ after logging in with the user name and password provided with the admit card.
A few other students at the exam centre also reported the same problem. Since the candidates had valid admit cards, the invigilators contacted the NATA authorities. By the time, a new password was generated, the students had lost around 20 minutes of exam time.NATA is held twice a year. The first test was held on August 29 in which around 22,843 candidates acrosss the country appeared and 19,079 qualified. For those students who had not attended the exam or for those who wanted to improve the score, the second test was held on September 12.
“As we were not able to log in after 20 minutes for no fault of ours, we could not attempt many questions in the first leg of the exam which was for 45 minutes,” said Adarsh.When the students contacted NATA helpline, they were informed that similar complaints have come up from other parts of the state as well. The students have written to NATA urging them to allot a re-test .
TNIE contacted Raj Oberoi, Registrar of Council of Architecture in New Delhi who said the exam centres were directed to give extra time to students in case they lost time due to technical issues. “If some students have not been given extra time, we will examine the matter,” he assured.