JEE Main 2015 Glitches: Student hopes vs Ground reality

JEE Main 2015 offline exam concluded on April 4 this year. According to reports, as many as 10 lakh students appeared for the pen and paper based exam. Check JEE Main 2015 student reactions for the offline exam here!

Soon after the exam was over, queries from students who took the offline exam started pouring in. While some took to social media platforms like Facebook to express their reactions and report the glitches in the exam, there were some who got in touch personally with experts to clear the doubts in their minds about JEE Main 2015 offline paper. See JEE Main 2015 student reactions of Facebook.

Shiksha.com got in touch with various JEE Main 2015 aspirants like these to get deeper into the situation of never ending doubts and queries. However, this time around and to our surprise, students reported many shortcomings related to this national level exam. And there were not only one or two but many such glitches which were just contrary to what students had expected them to be. This led us to think about the ground realities of JEE Main 2015. Let’s discuss some of these here.

Errors in admit cards:

Students reported that the JEE Main 2015 admit cards being received by them had wrong information printed on them. The aspirants constantly complained about this error.

Soon after this situation was reported, CBSE came to the rescue and tried rectifying the mistake at the earliest. However, there were some students to whom help never came. And succumbing to this situation, these students missed their exam as they were denied entry to the exam centre.

Late entrants:

Some students that we spoke to reported that due to heavy rain and bad weather in certain parts of the country, they couldn’t reach their respective centres on time. However, they did reach the exam centre 5-10 minutes late but were not allowed to enter the centre and take the exam at all.

The point here is that JEE Main is one of the biggest and the most competitive engineering exams in the country and lakhs of students take the exam every year.  While, there are students who prepare for this exam for two years and there are some who start their preparation as early as 6^th standard.

While we think students should have been careful enough to reach the centre half an hour before time, we also believe that aspirants should have been given a grace time of 15 or 30 minutes to enter the centre.  A time frame of 15-20 minutes should not be the deciding factor for the future of a student who has been preparing for this exam with all their heart and soul for years.

Let’s take CAT 2014 – The biggest management exam of the country - as an example.  While reporting on field for this exam, shiksha.comreporters came across students who were allowed to enter the exam centre even after 20 minutes after the exam commenced.

And for those who do not have an idea, every year, CAT is taken by approx two lakh students; while over 12 lakh students take JEE Main every year.

Floods in Jammu:

Due to floods in Jammu & Kashmir, hundreds of students could not take the exam. The situation has left the students distressed as they had no other option but to skip the exam.

Though the number of students from J&K who couldn’t take the exam is not very high, but we cannot deny the fact that if no alternatives are arranged for these aspirants, their future might just be at stake.

We can just hope that CBSE makes some other plans for students - who have been affected by floods and couldn’t take the exam – after normalcy is resumed in the state.

Pay Rs.1000 as fees to challenge responses:

JEE Main 2015 official answer keys and images of response sheets (OMR sheets) of Pen & Paper Based examination and Computer based examination  are expected to be out on April 18, 2015. According to the JEE Main official website, aspirants who are not satisfied with the responses can challenge the same by filling the online application form. The amount to be paid for this is Rs.1000/- per question.

Paying Rs.1000 per question might not be feasible for many students who want to chanllenge responses. Infact, we have met students appearing for the exam who belong to the lower strata of the society.  There might be chances of them not being able to pay such an amount.

Let's assume - What if a student wants to challenge the responses for five questions? Would it be feasible for him/her to pay Rs.5000/- for the same considering the fact that even after paying this amount, his challenge might just be rejected by the Board? Moreover, the fee once paid is non-refundable.

Such a step might just discourage a student to take a step further and challenge the responses even if he/she knows that he might benefit.

Errors/Wrong questions in JEE Main 2015:

According to latest reports by a leading daily, JEE Main 2015 exam was marred with errors. There were three questions in total which were wrong including two in the mathematics section and one in Physics.

While reporting for JEE Main 2015 live coverage, shiksha.com too met such students who were sceptical of questions being wrong in the paper.

If sources are to believed, then CBSE officials have claimed that students will be duly compensated for the errors/wrong questions reported in JEE Main 2015 paper.

Other related articles:

JEE Main 2015 Online Exam Analysis
JEE Main 2015: Two wrong questions in offline exam
JEE Main 2015 Online Exam Live!
Shiksha Opinion: Shouldn’t all JEE Main aspirants get a chance to appear for the exam?