Chennai: Most students were not able to finish the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) main exam that was conducted across the country on Sunday as the maths questions were tough and lengthy this year.

Over ten lakh students across the country appeared for the 6th edition of JEE (Main) offline exam, which is the gateway to B.E., B.Tech and B.Arch programmes in NITs, IIITs and other centrally funded institutions. It is also the eligibility test for JEE (advanced) for getting admissions in IITs.




Many students who wrote the exam in Chennai felt the calculations in mathematics and physics took a lot of time to solve. “The question paper is tough compared to last year particularly, the maths part was lengthy. Chemistry questions are direct ones,” a student from Chetpet said.

Another student said two questions had errors in physics part. The 37th question in D series did not have the correct option and another question was incomplete. Some students said the exam paper was mixed one - some questions are direct easy questions and some questions are tougher ones.

The question paper consists of 90 questions - 30 questions each from physics, chemistry and maths. For every correct answer four marks will be awarded and for an incorrect answer, students will lose one mark. Some of the exceptional students said they were able to finish the exam on time. “The question paper was not as easy as last year. But, I was able to finish the exam well on time and answered all the maths questions,” a student said.

Anand Nagarajan, academic head, school division, TIME, Chennai said, “The calculations in maths and physics were tough for the students and chemistry had unfamiliar questions. Despite the tough question paper, I think the general category cut-off will round 90 marks out of 360 due to the high competition,” he said.

Venky Ramesh, senior manager, academic operations, FITJEE, Chennai also said that many students found the maths questions bit lengthy and time-consuming. “Compared to last year, the exam was tough this year. I think the cut-off will go down this year,” he added.

The exam was conducted in 1,613 centres including eight abroad, the CBSE said. Totally 10.43 lakh students registered for the exam of whom 6.46 lakh were boys and 2.66 lakhs girls. Three transgenders also applied for the exam.