JEE Advanced 2013 - First Day, First Show!
Madiha Jawed & Aneeket Barua
The last step of the all new two-tier system introduced by the government for engineering aspirants presented itself on June 2, 2013. JEE Advanced, the stepping stone to enter the premier IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) and ISM - Dhanbad was taken by a whopping 1.5 lakh students across the country. It was conducted in various states of India and an international centre (UAE-Dubai). Students had to appear for the exam in two parts - Part1(from 9 am to 12 noon) and Part 2(from 2 pm to 5 pm). With the syllabus being absolutely identical, the only difference between the two parts was the pattern.
Apart from IITs and ISM-Dhanbad, the exam will open doors for students seeking admission in institutes like Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology - Rae Bareli, Indian Institute of Science Education Research, Indian Institute of Science- Bangalore and Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology.
At one of the centres in Noida, students were both happy and nervous; happy because they made it to JEE Advanced and nervous because they were a bit confused about the pattern of the exam.
For VaibhavKardal - a 1st year student of BITS Pilani - cracking JEE Main was not a big deal. He said, “The pattern for the exam was just like AIEEE and thus it was not a big deal for me. This time I prepared all on my own and took no coaching classes. However, the only confusion in my mind is that the officials haven’t yet declared the total marks for JEE Advanced like earlier they used to”.
While Shubhankar Sharma, who scored 130 in JEE Main wishes to have scored better. "Though I wish I could score better but I am all confident about the paper and have no confusions in my mind. I have been preparing for the last two years and took coaching classes," he informed.
More than the students, their parents looked worried and apprehensive about the exam. One of the parent of a JEE enthusiast said, “I think the earlier pattern was better as due to this normalization process, students from different boards other than CBSE may have an advantage over others. Secondly, I think CBSE should declare the results for both the Mains and Advanced on the same day. Why not give students the chance to choose between IITs and NITs rather than deciding it themselves”.
For another parent, JEE has increased the pressure rather than reducing it. “My son was not at all interested in appearing for NITs but was only keen to go for IITs. However, with the new pattern, he would forcibly have to take both the exams”.
Part 1:
Though most of the students were not available for comments after the first half of JEE Advanced due to the immense pressure and nervousness for the second half of the exam, we did catch hold of one of the students, who informed that the paper was pretty tough. Kritartha, a drop out from Aligarh preparing in Delhi for a year now said, “Being a dropout, after attempting the paper, I don’t think wasting a year was worth it. The paper was quite difficult compared to my last year's experience. I could attempt over 50% of the paper but could not finish the paper on time. We did not have choices to attempt any section that we wanted to and a question from aromaticity from Chemistry was a total surprise. Physics was tough; Chemistry was average, while Maths was the toughest. The 1st section was given the most weightage.
In fact, one of the invigilators at one of the centres informed that Paper 1 was very tough and students looked quite tensed.
Part 2:
The first reaction of students coming out of the centre signaled a not-so-good paper. Rohit, a student of JSS College said, “The second paper was pretty tough in terms of marks distribution. In fact, there was negative marking for each question which was so not expected. This kind of a paper is quite unusual for IITs. However, the level of questions were same for each section. For students who did not study, the second part would be really tough."
On asking Mayank Gupta – a student of Amity International School – about the second paper, he said, “According to me, both papers were of equal level. Part 1 contained 10 MCQs, 5 multi correct questions and 5 numerical type questions. On the other hand, Part 2 had 8 Multi-correct questions, 4 paragraphs with 2 questions each and Matrix Math questions. He added, “Both the papers came with a lot of surprises. One of the major surprises was that till last year the paper was of 240 marks but this time both the papers were only for 180 marks. Single correct answers were of 2 marks contrary to last year where they carried 3 marks. Moreover, there was no negative marking too in the first paper.
Rohit, a student of DPS - Navi Mumbai said, “The paper was completely different from last year. The pattern was also changed. I would rate the paper 3/5 in terms of the difficulty level. I could solve 90% of the physics paper and 60% overall. Physics was quite easy and Maths a bit tough and tricky."
Another student Nimish from J.P International said the paper was average. “I am 80% sure of cracking the paper. However, I found the MCQ part a bit tough. I found the second part easier inspite of the fact that the marking scheme in the second part was stricter than the first part." For him, JEE has brought more tension and pressure with it and he believes that the earlier pattern of conducting AIEEE was way better.
Saurabh Singh, another JEE aspirant felt, “The level of both the papers was too high as only 1.5 lakh students got shortlisted for JEE Advanced 2013. According to me, the basic idea for conducting two papers is to check how much pressure a child can take.”
Also check out JEE Advanced 2013 expert paper analysis & solutions of Paper 1 and 2 on Shiksha.com
