CBSE debars late students from attempting NEET

“Five students reached barely a couple of minutes late and the security staff at the exam centre promptly shut the gate and did not allow them inside even after much pleading. Parents of those students tried contacting the CBSE board, but to no avail,” said one of the parents who child appeared for NEET at a school in Sanpada. Similarly, some students who were giving their exam at a Santacruz centre were also not allowed inside the centre as they were late by a few minutes.

The paper consisted of three sections—Physics with 45 questions, Chemistry with 45 questions and Biology with 90 questions. Each question carried 4 marks for the right answer and one mark was deducted for every wrong answer. While most students found the paper easy to attempt, some had a problem with two questions in the Biology section.

“Chapters on frogs and earthworms have been omitted from the NEET syllabus so now the board will have to confirm if this can be considered out of syllabus,” said Professor Subhash Joshi, from a city based coaching centre. For every wrong question, students stand to gain 4 marks for each wrong or out of syllabus question, if the CBSE board accepts the mistake. “There’s also a good chance the CBSE will call it as part of their General Knowledge question, and not give any extra marks to students,” said Sudha Shenoy, a parent.

17-year-old Jeremiah Nunes, a resident of Andheri, left home at 6am in order to reach his exam centre in Chembur on time. “Thankfully the effort was worth it. The exam was pretty easy and some questions were actually a repeat from last year’s paper. Physics was lengthier than the other two sections,” said Nunes.

A total of 1.39 lakh students appeared for NEET from Maharashtra, out of which 24,251 were from Mumbai. According to a circular released by CBSE on Sunday, students are vying for 95,000 MBBS and BDS seats in the country through this exam. NEET results will be declared on June 8.