Nearly 560,000 aspirants took the IIT Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) on Sunday, compared to 460,000 who attempted it last year.
The test went off without hiccups, as students, for the first time, marked their answers in the OMR (optical mark recognition) sheets with pen.
The candidates were given a copy of the sheet they marked. The results will be declared on May 18.
The examination was conducted in 1,067 centres. Paper 1 (held in the morning) had 60 questions carrying a total of 210 marks — in the order of physics, chemistry and mathematics. Each subject had 20 questions, and their pattern was the same..
The afternoon’s paper 2 (with the same subjects, 20 questions each, and having an identical pattern) featured 60 questions in a total for 198 marks.
Ajay Antony, vice-president of TIME (Triumphant Institute of Management Education), said the overall examination process was smooth. “Some of the questions were lengthier in this year’s paper compared to IIT-JEE 2011,” he noted.
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The difficulty level was almost similar to previous year, Antony said.
Mathematics was the most difficult section, followed by physics and chemistry, according to him.
Pramod Maheshwari, CEO of Career Point Infosystems, said paper 1 was “relatively simple”, while paper 2 was tough.
The candidates will be competing for about 9,600 seats in 15 IITs across the country, besides the Institute of Technology at Benaras Hindu University and the Indian School of Mines at Dhanbad.
This could probably be the last IIT-JEE in its present format. From 2013, the ministry of human resources is planning to introduce a single-entrance examination for admission to the IITs. The admission process may give weightage to the class 12 board exam score.