| Monday, April 21, 2008
More seats now but the going is tough
IIT-JEE 2008 was more challenging than previous versions, feel
experts
Kickstarting the entrance examination season with the toughest
of all engineering entrance examinations, IIT-JEE 2008 went
off with no unexpected twists in the tale except for a small
variation in mark distribution in the second paper, and a relatively
tougher and lengthier Mathematics paper. The students had no
surprise element to complain about.
Following the recent Supreme Court decision to implement 27
per cent quota, the IITs announced that all existing IITs
would carry out the reservation in three phases, implementing
nine per cent reservation this year, while the three new IITs
in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan will implement 27 per
cent at one go.
The IIT-JEE scores are used as a benchmark for admissions
into the seven IITs located in Kharagpur, Kanpur, Delhi, Chennai,
Bombay, Roorkee and Guwahati. IT-BHU, ISM-Dhanbad, MERI-Kolkata
and NIFFT-Ranchi are some other institutes which use JEE scores
and IISER-Pune and Kolkata, and IIST-Trivandrum is on the
extended merit list. As many as 3.2 lakh students —
70,000 more than the previous year — will vie for 4,500
general seats, as per current statistics.
IIT-JEE patterns are closely monitored both by students and
the coaching institutes. The Hindu EducationPlus spoke to
experts and students to form an analysis of the paper for
the benefit of students who have already appeared for the
exam as well as those who are preparing for future JEEs.
Aditya Kumar, who took a year off to write the entrance this
year, said: “The paper was too lengthy to solve and
even the Chemistry paper seemed a little tougher than usual.”
His friend Harish agreed and said that the Mathematics section
was tougher and some of the problems were too long for the
objective format.
Stand to gain
“The Mathematics paper was tough in both sessions. Questions
were challenging but those who identified and omitted those
questions stand to gain,” said Ajay Arora, Regional
Director, TIME. While in 2007 both papers contained 69 questions
each, this year the mark distribution was different but the
difference is too minor to affect students. Experts also said
that Physical Chemistry and Modern Physics sections were tougher
than usual.
The cut-off for the Mathematics paper is predicted to be much
lesser than usual. Going by last year’s method, institutes
such as TIME estimate the overall cut-off at 34 per cent which
is a total of 167 marks.
Mathematics was the thorn in the flesh for the majority of
students. In Physics the questions were uniformly distributed
and the Linked Assertion types were difficult, but both papers
tested the knowledge of concepts and basics in the subject.
Experts say that IIT-JEE 2008 was more challenging than previous
years and Chemistry was the only really scoring section.
Another variation in the matrix match section will come as
good news to students. Previously students stood to lose all
six marks even if the answer was partially right; in JEE-2008
students can get one mark if they get the answers correct
in one row. “The pattern was no different but the questions
tested genuine knowledge of subject. Students who will take
the exam next year should study the basics thoroughly to face
any twist,” says Mr. Arora.
While 28 per cent of the questions was straight objective
type, 36 per cent was the linked comprehension type. Ten per
cent of the multiple choice questions had multiple answers
and the matrix match type questions were missing from paper
one. Fifteen per cent was the assertion and reasoning type
which tested the comprehension and conceptual knowledge of
the student.
Courtesy: The Hindu - Education Plus
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