JEE Aspirants in a Confusion About Exam Pattern

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), New Delhi recently announced the conducting new Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) from 2013. The students have to take the new Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) for admissions in to IITs, NITs, IIITs, Deemed Universities and other central funded technical institutions from April and June 2013.

However, a area remains unclear including the syllabus of the JEE entrance test.

The Joint Entrance Exam will be conducted in two parts, JEE Mains and JEE Advanced. JEE (Main) replaces the AIEEE entrance exam and JEE (Advanced) replaced the IIT-JEE entrance exam from 2013.

The JEE (Main) for B.E./B.Tech will be held in two modes, viz offline and online (CBT). The offline examination for JEE (Main) will be held on 7th April, 2013 and the online examinations will be held thereafter in April, 2013. The examination for admissions to B.Arch/B.Planning courses at NITs, IIITs, DTU, Delhi and other CFTIs will be held on 7th April, 2013 in offline mode only.

Only 1.5 lakh of the top rankers in JEE Main will be eligible to write the JEE Advanced 2013, after which they will be shortlisted for the IITs.

R Gurumurthy, Former Head of Chemistry Department, Annamalai University, who trains students in clearing JEE test said, "The syllabus is largely unknown. Earlier, the students who prepared fro the JEE to get into the IITs would have a good chance at cracking the AIEEE - the qualifying exam for entry into the NITs and IIITs".

But with the JEE (Main) test becoming the sole qualifying exam, students are confused on how to approach questions, say experts.

"The questions in AIEEE were objective and there was no negative marking and the test had many topics. But JEE had limited topics and questions of different kinds with negative marking," Prof Gurumurthy said.

Students and parents say that there is a lot of confusion in coaching institutes regarding the syllabus.

Ankur Jain, Director, FIITJEE, feels that since no changes have been announced in the pattern, it would be beneficial for students to prepare for JEE (Main) with the AIEEE syllabus.

Many don't know if they should let their children prepare for the JEE (Main) alone or for the advanced test as well. "It has been a confusing year and now, two tests and school exams - it is getting tiring for many," says R Rajalakshmi, a parent.

This is the first time school board exams results will be taken into account. "Last year's statistics show that CBSE students may have to score 390marks out of 500 marks to clear the 80% needed for the test. That may not be difficult as most aspirants get score easily," said K.K. Anand of Smart classes.

Students who are not sure about getting into IITs but want to make it to the NITs are also worried.

Gowrishankar, a student from Sankara Vidyalaya of Class 12 said, "It would be easy if we knew for sure what all to prepare so that we can focus on;y on the mains and board. To improve school results, we have to score well in languages and electives that we have neglected all this while".