MHT-CET exam pattern fully transparent, all queries from students, parents resolved: Official

Mumbai: Maharashtra was the first state in the country to conduct the admission process for professional courses in a computerised and centralised manner, and this method was later adopted by the Union government as it is totally transparent and free from human intervention, a top official said on Saturday.

Students and their parents, therefore, must not believe in rumours, since all objections raised were addressed and fully resolved, Dilip Sardesai, commissioner of Maharashtra State Common Entrance Test (MHT-CET), told reporters.

"The state common entrance examination cell conducted the MHT -CET 2024 entrance examination for engineering, pharmacy and agriculture courses between April 22 and 30 (PCB group) and from May 2 to 16 (PCM group). The examinations were conducted at 169 examination centres. The PCB group examinations were conducted in 12 sessions, whereas PCM tests were held in 18 sessions," he said.

A total of 3, 30,988 male students as well as 3 ,94 ,033 female students and 31 transgender candidates registered their name through an online system, of which 6,75,377 students appeared for the common entrance test, the official informed.

Sardesai said there was no negative marking for incorrect answers and the results were declared using the percentile method, and no candidate got grace marks, he pointed out at a press conference here.

"If the candidate or their parents had any objection regarding the questions or answers, the CET cell provided them with an online facility for registering their objections. These objections were verified by the respective subject experts and, accordingly, the answer sheets were modified. The report of the modified answer sheets was published on the CET cell website," Sardesai said.

The result process was implemented after incorporating the revised answer sheets as per the suggestions of the subject experts, he said, adding the marks obtained by candidates were declared according to the formula of the result process and the session wise results were declared in the form of percentile.

The candidate who had equal marks, also called 'raw score', in a single session were given equal percentile, he said.

"Similarly, the tests were conducted on different days in two sessions each, so the 'raw score' related to various sessions and the percentile of the candidates are different. The objection that the candidates did not get the marks they scored as per the answer sheets made available to them is also incorrect," he said.

"The objections that were registered by the candidates have been verified by the respective subject experts and the answer sheets had been modified accordingly. The report was published on cetcell.mahacet.org site of CET cell for the information of the candidates. The process of the results was implemented as per the amended answer sheets," he said.

The marks obtained by the candidates have been declared in the form of session wise percentile, following the formula set for the process of result, he said.

The examinations are held in different batches but a single merit list is declared, Sardesai said.

Another objection was that the question papers for each batch are different but the result of each session is calculated independently, the official said.

"This procedure had been made available on the website of CET cell. It was published in April 2024 well in advance before the commencement of the examination. Therefore, this objection is also incorrect," he said.

Till date, about 200 candidates and parents had filed the applications with the CET cell, Mumbai office and many applications were received via email, and all these were verified, addressed and resolved, Sardesai said.

A total of 54 candidates, whose objections were accepted for consideration, were refunded the amount deposited by them using online mode in their bank accounts, he said.

"The results of the examinations are declared batch wise for providing equal opportunity to all the candidates in each and every session and this examination pattern has been implemented since 2018-19," Sardesai said.