It was an easy paper, say students on Comed-K test

The undergraduate entrance test conducted by the Consortium of Medical Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (Comed-K) on Tuesday witnessed 80% attendance in Karnataka.

The online-based test was conducted in two shifts with an overall attendance of 67% (Karnataka 80%) for shift 1 and 67.84% (Karnataka 80%) in shift 2.

The candidates who appeared for the test were extremely happy and said the paper was very easy.

Puneeth Kumar, an examinee, said, "The KCET was very tough. Compared to that, Comed-K was easy."

"I was expecting a tough and tricky paper, but it was actually very simple and easy," said another candidate.

Comed-K UGET is a gateway for admissions to engineering courses at private engineering colleges in the state.

There are over 180 member institutions that accept Comed-K ranks.

"The exam was conducted keeping in view all guidelines related to Covid-19," said Dr S Kumar, executive secretary, Comed-K.

The test was conducted in 157 cities across India and 23 cities in Karnataka (32 centres in Bengaluru). There were no malpractices reported from any of the centres, Comed-K said.

As many as 44,741 out of the 66,304 registered candidates attended the exam across the nation. In Karnataka, this number was 17,295, of the total 21,352 registered candidates.

The provisional answer keys will be notified on the Comed-K website on September 17, along with forms for challenging the answer keys. The final answer keys will be made available on September 23. The scorecards will be made available to the candidates in their respective applicant logins on September 26.

However, Comed-K had to face a few unexpected situations. At Aligarh in UP, 120 students were scheduled to take their exam. But state authorities refused permission, saying that a major event with the participation of the prime minister was scheduled 1 km away from the exam venue.

Immediate alternative arrangements were made to accommodate all candidates at a centre 10 km away.

Two centres in Chandigarh and Jalandhar (Punjab) were not made available by the governmental authorities and this happened on September 13.

The service provider's team managed to identify, sanitize and establish alternative centres for the exam.

Students from Jamnagar found it difficult to reach the exam centre in Rajkot (Gujarat), because of heavy rain and flooding of the highway. This resulted in only 50% attendance at the centre.