MADURAI: Stating that the UG NEET examination was already conducted in a single shift, government doctors questioned why the PG NEET exam was conducted in two shifts in a single day. The PG NEET 2025 exam has been scheduled for June 15, 2025.
Tamil Nadu Resident Doctors Association (TNRDA) general secretary Dr M Keerthi Varman said, as per the exam pattern, there will be a total of 200 multiple choice questions, accounting for 800 marks. However, as the exam will be conducted in two shifts, with question papers differing from one shift to the other in a single day, there are possibilities of one set of questions being tougher than the other, he said.
"The authorities have claimed that normalisation of scores will be implemented to adjust the marks (of different exams) to a common scale, to ensure fair comparisons by accounting for variations in difficulty levels. However, one must note that normalisation is not a solution. Different shifts, by nature, cannot be perfectly equal in difficulty. No statistical formula, whether it is mean-standard deviation (Z-scores), percentiles, or any other, cannot fully account for the real-world complexity of varied question papers," he said.
He further said that lakhs of aspirants will be appearing for the exam, while there are only 60,000 PG medical seats. Terming the conduct of PG NEET in two shifts as an injustice, the association requested to conduct the exam in a single shift alone.
When contacted, a health official told TNIE, "Government doctors in Tamil Nadu and their associations have expressed similar opinions on the issue. We have also sent our representations to the National Board of Examinations. Since there is a lot of time, the date and timing could be revised."