3,000 take IIT (Advanced) exam

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 20

For the first time, the JEE (Advanced), the entrance test for admission to the IITs, was held online on Sunday.

About 3,000 students from the tricity appeared at the Industrial Area Phase-I centre in Chandigarh and Chandigarh University in Mohali. There were two exams — 9am to 12 noon and 2pm to 5pm.

The candidates had been instructed not to wear jewellery, full-sleeved shirts, high heels and shoes for the examination. Students had to leave their belongings with their parents outside the examination centre.

The attendance for students was biometric for which they had to report at 7:30 am for the paper-I and 12:45 pm for the paper-II.

This year, the IITs have decided to reserve seats for female candidates. About 779 reserve seats will be allocated in various IITs for female engineering candidates with IIT-Kharagpur having the maximum seats for girls.

The question papers consisted of objective-type questions designed to test comprehension, reasoning and analytical ability of candidates.

Shivani, who took the exam at Chandigarh University, said: “The physics part was easier, but mathematics and chemistry were tougher. The integer type questions were tough.”

What experts say

Kunal Singh, IIT-JEE physics expert, said: “While students found the overall level of paper-I moderate, paper-II was claimed to be lengthy by aspirants. Because of the new pattern of questions introduced and multiple correct choice questions appearing in both papers, scoring will definitely be lower than 2017.” He added: “While the total number of questions was same as the previous year, the total marks of paper-I and paper-II has changed from 183 to 180 this year. The section two had eight questions where answers up to two digits after decimal have to be entered.”

Rajat Garg, mathematics expert, said: “Mathematics paper-I was moderate this year. But a few questions in both papers were exhaustive and required thorough concepts followed by some calculative questions.”