A mere 0.06% of medical seat aspirants registered for taking the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) in Kannada.

Over 10.33 lakh candidates registered for the test, which was held by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on May 7 in 10 regional languages apart from English.

While the total number of medical seat aspirants who opted for taking the test in 10 regional languages was 1,05,194, only 712 candidates registered for taking the test in Kannada, according to CBSE.

However, the actual number of candidates who took the entrance examination in Kannada and other regional languages was not immediately available. Hindi-speaking students (1,20,663) formed the biggest chunk of those who applied for taking the test in regional languages. English remained the choice of the majority of students with 80.16%. The number of candidates registered for taking the examination in Gujarati was 47,853 (4.20%), Bengali 34,417 (3.02%), Tamil 15,206 (1.33 %), Assamese 3,810 (0.33 %), Telugu 1,766 (0.15 %), Marathi 978 (0.08 %) and Oriya 452 (0.03 %).

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“I challenged the answers to five questions when the answer key was released. I think we got grace marks for two of them. Such confusing questions lead to stress while writing the test and we also lose time,”  she said.

Preethi K from Ballari secured the all-India second rank in the Scheduled Tribes category.

“It has been my childhood dream to become a doctor because I am fascinated by the human body,” Preethi said.  She grew up in Ballari and studied there till Class X before moving to Bengaluru to join Sri Chaitanya Techno School in Electronics City.

The third rank in the ST category was secured by Ambika, a student of the Kannada-medium Gnana Sudha Vidalaya in Bidar.

P Y Ganesh, a student of Vaishnavi Chethana PU college, Davangere, secured the all-India sixth rank in the OBC category.