JEE Advanced was a hard nut to crack, say students

The candidates who attempted the JEE Advanced for admissions to Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) were not really happy when they came out of the exam hall on Monday.

Their reactions were mixed when DH spoke to them. Paper 1 and 2 were conducted in two schedules - 9 am to 12 pm and 2 pm to 5 pm, respectively. As per the data available, over 2.24 lakh students were eligible to appear for JEE Advanced across the nation, of which 1.73 lakh had registered for the exam.

Anirudha, one of the students who cracked the test from Bengaluru, said, “I have gone through papers of previous years and this year, the papers were tougher. Most questions were lengthy and complicated."

However, there were no technical glitches reported or errors in the papers. "I felt this year’s papers were the toughest compared to previous years. Especially for the Maths part, I needed some more time to complete the paper. There was not much frisking at the examination hall,” said another student.

Kevin Martin from Bengaluru, who secured All India Rank 2 in JEE Main, said, "The paper 1 was tougher compared to paper 2 and the Mathematics part was too lengthy."

“The papers this year were tougher than the previous year. Compared to Maths, Physics and Chemistry were okay. The Maths part was lengthy and tougher," said another student.

Even the subject experts felt the papers were tough. Bhuvana Anilkumar, HoD of JEE and NEET courses, T.I.M.E test institute, said, "The opinion across the state was that paper 1 was difficult. Students who got over 90 percentile in JEE main felt that paper 1 was harder than paper 2. Many of the students were unhappy about Physics in paper 1 and tried to focus on it in paper 2, resulting in not being able to give enough importance to Mathematics. They felt that Mathematics was lengthier to solve in paper 2."