KCET Day-2: Out-of-syllabus questions stump candidates

Bengaluru: The Day Two of the Karnataka Common Entrance Test (KCET) also turned out to be a mess with students alleging that 10 and 21 questions in Physics and Chemistry papers respectively were out of syllabus.

The faux pas on the second day of the CET triggered anger in students and parents who demanded re-examination.

“We were yet to come to terms from the shock on account of out-of-syllabus questions on the first day, but, the same mistake happened on second day also,” said a student.

A group of parents have filed a complaint before the principal secretaries of School Education and Higher Education demanding re-examination or to consider only II PUC marks for admission to professional courses this time.

In a complaint, the Karnataka Private School Colleges’ Parent Associations’ Co-Ordination Committee has demanded an inquiry against the executive director of Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA).

“Despite knowing that some of the chapters were deleted from the subjects, the KEA authorities set the question paper including the dropped chapters. We suspect a hidden agenda in this and demand a detailed inquiry,” said B N Yogananda, president of the Association.

The Akhila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad warned of statewide protest if re-examination was not conducted. 

Refusing the statement by KEA officials about grace marks a parent said, “grace marks will not serve justice to the students who have really studied hard the entire year. As the grace marks will be allotted uniformly, this will impact on the ranks.”

Speaking to DH, a senior faculty of Chemistry from a private PU college in Bengaluru said, “As many as seven chapters in Chemistry were deleted and it was communicated to all the colleges. We did not cover those chapters.

But for our surprise, in the KCET question paper on Friday as many as 21 questions were from these deleted chapters.”

“The test itself was for 60 marks and of that 21 questions were out of syllabus. We really don’t need their mercy in the form of grace marks. We are ready to write the re-examination,” said a student.

Those appeared for Physics said that as many as 10 questions were out of syllabus. “Government has given opportunity to improve PUC marks not KCET. We have only one chance in KCET. Why should officials make us scapegoats for their mistakes,” questioned another student. 

However, the KEA authorities issued a statement saying the exams were conducted smoothly. Any objections regarding the questions can be submitted till April 27, 5.30 in the evening, said KEA Executive Director Ramya. 

The KEA on Thursday had justified its reference to syllabus for question-paper setting saying that there was no communication from the PUE Department.

But the PUE department on Friday clarified by sharing the related documents with media and said, it had intimated KEA about the changes/deletion of syllabus.