TIRUNELVELI: In the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) 2024-Session 1, conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) in January 2024, S Mukunth Prathish of Pushpalata Vidya Mandir School, Tirunelveli, has got 100 NTA score (300/300).
Twenty-three candidates have bagged the perfect 100 score in the exam nationally with a maximum number of them being from Telangana, the NTA said on Tuesday. Over 11.70 lakh candidates had appeared for the first edition of the crucial exam.
Among those who secured an NTA score of 100, seven are from Telangana, two from Haryana, three each from Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, two are from Delhi, and one each from Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. All of them are males.
According to NTA officials, NTA score is not the same as percentage of marks but it’s a normalised score.
Speaking to TNIE, Prathish said his ambition is to do electrical engineering in IIT-Bombay by clearing JEE (Advanced) 2024. “I prepared for the exam for two years. I used to study five hours during weekdays and 12 hours during weekends and holidays. I followed teachers’ advice and took their recommendations on what books I should read. My school administration conducted several tests which helped me a lot in my preparation. One of my friend’s kind words over phone a day before the exam helped me calm down and relieved me from the exam pressure,” Prathish added.
Prathish had scored 486 marks in the CBSE Class 10 exam. “I have board exam (Class 12) this month. But I have to prepare for JEE (adv), too, that will be held in May,” he said.
Second session of JEE (Mains) exam in April
Prathish’s father B Srikanth is an engineering assistant in All India Radio, Thoothukudi, and his mother M Ram Chitra is a former employee of India Post. School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh in his X handle congratulated Prathish on his performance.
“Prathish has brought pride to Tamil Nadu. Heartiest congratulations to him for being among the top 23 students in the All India Rank list, and to school teachers and parents who supported him,” he said.
The second session of the JEE (Mains) examination will be conducted in April after which a combined rank list of the students from session I and II will be released.
Students who are not happy with their performance in the first session can reappear for the exam in April apart from those who are applying fresh.
“As far as we have seen, students from the state have performed well, scoring about 90 percentile. We expect the cut off for the general category to be around 90 percentile and these students will be qualified to write JEE (Advanced).
We expect the Tamil Nadu students to do better than last year and we will know the number of students qualifying after session II results,” said B Pavan Kumar, deputy director of FIIT JEE , Chennai. The second session of the JEE (Mains) will be conducted from April 4 to 15.
23 scored 300/300
Among those who secured 100 NTA score, seven are from Telangana, two from Haryana, three each from AP, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, two from Delhi, and one each from Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu