IIT aspirants can take an online mock test for the upcoming admission test - JEE-Advance in May - using computers available at any CBSE-affiliated school.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has directed its affiliate schools to open the doors of their computer laboratories for such students to enable them take the mock test ahead of the examinations to be held for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
"This facility may be extended to the students who are qualified to write JEE-Advance examination only," the Board said in its directive to about 18,000 schools affiliated to it in India and abroad.
The move is aimed at helping out rural students as the joint admission board of the IITs has decided to conduct the JEE-Advance in online mode only from this year, doing away with the pen and paper mode.
IIT-Kanpur is holding the mock test for JEE aspirants between May 1 and 5.
The nationwide admission test is conducted in two parts-JEE Main and JEE Advance. While the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and other centrally-funded technical institutes admit students on the basis of their performance in the JEE-Main, a joint admission board of the 23 IITs conducts the JEE-Advance for filling their seats.
The CBSE is scheduled to conduct the JEE-Main in pen and paper mode across the country on April 8. The computer-based test for the JEE-Main aspirants, who have opted for it, will be held by the Board on April 15 and 16.
The IITs will conduct the JEE Advance on May 20.
Same difficulty level
In a separate notification on Wednesday, the CBSE assured that the JEE-Main questions will have same difficulty level for every set of question papers prepared for this year.
"The subject experts who have prepared the question papers have certified that the entire syllabus of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry have been covered in each question set by dividing the syllabus of each subject into appropriate number of units and choosing equal number of questions from each unit," the board said.
In every question paper set, each subject would carry the same percentage of "easy, medium and difficult" questions, it said.
