errors in IIT-JEE paper

MUMBAI: The Joint Entrance Exam has the capacity to transform lives. So, when close to 5 million candidates stand for the race, an error is capable of wiping out several dreams. On Sunday, several students walked out after the first JEE paper and screamed that three questions in Maths were erroneous.

IIT-Kanpur's director Sanjay Dhande said he had not received any complaints, but would look into the matter and justice would be done, if the questions were indeed vague or incorrect.

Two questions on matrices (question 55 and 65 of paper number 5) did not have a matching answer in the options listed. "In the same paper, question number 69, when solved, gives us two answers, both of which were present in the options," said Krishna Kumar, CEO of an Andhra Pradesh-based class.

His statement was echoed by several other city-based tutorials. "Apart from the errors, our students found the papers easier as compared to the last year JEE," said Praveen Tyagi, proprietor of a Mumbai-based coaching class.

JEE-2011's marking pattern was the same as its predecessor. "Like last year the three-mark questions carried negative marking of one-mark; the two-mark and four-mark questions did not have any negative marking," said Ajay Antony of a pan-India tutorial chain.

The stakes got higher for close to 95,925 students, for whom this was the last chance of their lives to get into the premier IIT. The remaining 3.89 lakh were sitting for the test for the first time.

The JEE is a combination of two papers: each one quizzing students from a mixed bag of questions from physics, chemistry and maths. Arpit Patel (17) found the first paper very easy but got stuck in the second paper. "The second paper was a little difficult as chemistry has never been my forte. But the rest of the paper was really good," said Patel.

However, a few found paper 2 lengthy. "The maths section was really tough while the other two sections were manageable. I just hope the results will be good," said Apeksha Sanganeria.

In all, of the 4.85 lakh candidates, JEE-2011 saw the largest contingent of aspirants from UP (83,139), followed by Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. Close to 200 students sat for the JEE in Dubai. Report indicate that about 2-3% students, on an average, did not show up for the first session, read a press note from IIT-Kanpur, this years organizing institute.

Like students, Dhande told the media that the paper went off smoothly. All is well, he smiled.