Bengaluru: For candidates who appeared for the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) at a centre in Peenya, technical glitches posed tougher challenges than the questions on Sunday, taking a psychological toll in many.
“With JEEs having an important say in how our lives turn out to be, such incidents should have been avoided at any cost,” said Aparna, a candidate who said she lost all the confidence that she had built through months seeped through in an hour’s time.
According to the candidates at Ion Digital Zone, Paper 1 began well on time at 9 am but the real ‘test’ began at around 9.20 am when the screens showed a ‘Server Authentication Failed’ error. As the issue was raised by the candidates right then, the invigilators intervened trying to work out a solution.
“However, it easily took another 90 minutes off our time as the test resumed only at around 11 am. Some candidates were seen busy solving questions which they remembered and this was seen as an added advantage to some,” said Pawan, another candidate.
By 12 noon, a power failure put the test again to a halt for almost an hour more, extending the finish time to 2pm, the same time when Paper 2 had to commence.
The entire scenario also added to the worries of parents who waited outside the centre, some of them calling out to the higher authorities on Twitter.
“How do you expect students to give exams in such situations? Frequent power problems, network failure, lift got stuck,” noted K.G. Vijayvargiya.
The test which had to conclude at 5pm ended only at 7.15 pm adding to more worries for those who travelled long distances to the centre to appear for the test.
One among them, Adarsh from Mysuru said that the day drained all energy off him and at times, the confidence of getting a seat at a good institution for higher studies as well.
Paper 2 tougher than Paper 1, Chemistry tough
The general reaction of candidates who appeared for the test was that Paper 2 which was answered in the afternoon session was tougher than Paper 1.
“Paper 2 included questions which were set in a tricky manner. Mathematics and Chemistry sections were a bit tougher than expected,” said Neel Balar, a student from Deeksha, who secured All India Rank 259 at JEE (Main) 2018.
Chirag, a student from BASE also found Chemistry questions tough. “Even though Mathematics questions required lengthy calculations, Chemistry was toughest of all,” he said.
According to experts from T.I.M.E, Paper 1 was of the ‘moderate’ difficulty level while Paper 2 was ‘slightly hard.’
Even though over 2.4 lakh candidates who took the JEE (Mains) qualified for the test, only 1.6 lakh among them at the national level had applied for the test.
