IIT Council weighs ‘adaptive’ JEE Advanced: Dynamic questions, pilot mock test, and a push to cut coaching pressure

The proposal, recorded in the Council’s meeting minutes, aims to make the test less stressful, assess reasoning and critical thinking more effectively, and reduce dependence on coaching. The Council has suggested setting up an expert committee led by the JEE Apex Board and IIT Kanpur to study feasibility, logistics, and design. It also recommended a pilot/optional adaptive test and a free mock test before the exam.

IIT Council weighs ‘Adaptive’ JEE Advanced to Cut Coaching Pressure

The IIT Council is considering a major redesign of JEE Advanced by exploring an “adaptive” exam format where questions can change in real time based on a student’s performance to make the test more student-friendly and less stressful. The proposal, recorded in the official minutes of the Council’s August 25 meeting (released this week), also includes steps like a pilot adaptive test and stronger mental health staffing across IITs.

What IIT Council Discussed

The IIT Council chaired by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and comprising IIT directors and chairs of IIT Boards of Governors met in August after a gap of two years, and the minutes were made public on Monday, January 5. One of the key points in the minutes is a recommendation to examine whether JEE Advanced can shift to an “adaptive” model so that the assessment becomes “better and less stressful,” while continuing to maintain its ethos in selecting students for the IIT admission.

The idea gained attention because it could change the exam experience itself. Instead of every candidate receiving the same static question papers, the test could potentially present questions that are generated or selected dynamically and adjusted as the student progresses. The Council minutes indicate that this approach is being viewed not only as a testing reform, but also as a way to address broader concerns around coaching dependency and the pressure the exam ecosystem creates for families.

The proposal: “Adaptive” JEE Advanced

According to the minutes, IIT Kanpur Director Prof Manindra Agrawal raised concerns about the current structure of JEE Advanced, pointing to the scale of the coaching industry and the emotional and financial stress experienced by students and families. He argued that the exam should do a better job of measuring critical thinking and reasoning skills, rather than rewarding narrow, coaching-driven preparation.

The proposed solution is “adaptive testing,” described in the minutes as a system in which questions are generated or adjusted in real time based on a candidate’s ability and performance during the exam. The minutes also capture the expected benefits the proposal claims- lower coaching dependence, improved fairness, and greater flexibility with secure testing environments.

In practical terms, Prof Agrawal explained (as quoted in the report) that an adaptive test could begin with simpler questions and gradually increase difficulty as the student answers correctly, helping the system identify the maximum difficulty level a student can consistently handle. He also suggested that adding more aptitude-oriented components could reduce coaching impact, arguing that aptitude correlates with innate intelligence and that coaching can train students to use ability better but cannot fundamentally change it.

What the Council Recommended Next

The IIT Council did not announce an immediate change to the JEE Advanced format; instead, it recommended that the proposal be evaluated by an expert panel led by the JEE Apex Board (JAB) and IIT Kanpur. This committee is expected to study whether adaptive testing is feasible, what operational logistics it would require, and whether it can genuinely reduce dependence on coaching.

A key part of the recommendation is building the technical capability to run such a test at scale: the minutes note the need for a tool that can generate questions of different difficulty levels dynamically. This is important because an adaptive exam depends on a large, well-structured question bank (or question generation system) that can reliably produce comparable difficulty and coverage across candidates.

The Council also recommended an optional adaptive test as a pilot ahead of the next JEE Advanced so that performance data can be collected and analyzed. Based on what the pilot shows, the minutes suggest creating a phased roadmap with timelines for any transition to adaptive testing rather than switching the exam format overnight.

Pilot Plan: Free Mock Test Timeline

The minutes also mention a concrete preparatory step: a free mock test around two months before JEE (Advanced), which is generally held in May. The intent is to give candidates a no-cost way to experience the exam environment and for organizers to gather insights that can inform future improvements especially if a pilot adaptive component is introduced.

Mental Health Staffing at IITs

Alongside exam reforms, the minutes record another recommendation: creating sanctioned posts for mental health professionals across IITs. The Council suggested these roles could be filled either on a regular basis or on contract, indicating flexibility for IITs while still pushing for more formal staffing.

The Council asked IIT Gandhinagar to propose a proper structure for these roles, including promotion pathways and methods of quality assessment. IIT Gandhinagar Director Prof Rajat Moona, quoted in the report, said mental wellbeing is a serious concern at engineering institutes and that psychologists are already being hired at IITs, but processes vary across campuses.

Moona also pointed out that IITs differ in how they decide staffing the counsellor-to-student ratio, and described different levels of support ranging from counselling to clinical and medical intervention adding that IITs are working toward a recommendation to present at the next IIT Council meeting.

Why this Matters for Students

If implemented, adaptive testing could reshape how students experience JEE Advanced by changing the sequence and difficulty of questions based on performance rather than giving a single fixed paper to everyone. Supporters, as reflected in the minutes, see it as a way to reduce coaching influence and improve fairness, but the Council has explicitly asked for evaluation of feasibility, logistics, and real impact before any rollout.

What remains unclear right now is the final design, if any, the extent to which questions would be “generated” versus selected from a calibrated bank, and how the system would ensure comparability across candidates, issues the recommended committee is expected to examine. For now, the recommendations signal direction rather than a confirmed change: a proposal has been recorded, a pilot has been recommended, and IIT Kanpur and JAB have been asked to study it in detail.

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