It was smooth sail through AIEEE retest

The retest for the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE), after the paper-leak scandal of last week, went off smoothly on Wednesday. Nearly 34,000 students attempted the retest across the country. On May 1, 2,01,112 students had appeared for the AIEEE examination, and many were thoroughly confused as the exam schedule was altered.

Mansoor Ali Khan, general secretary of the Management of Independent CBSE Schools’ Association, said, “The students appeared well-prepared, and the test went off smoothly.” He said that although 200 students took the test last week, fewer turned up for the retest on Wednesday.

“The paper leak caused a lot of inconvenience. For the first half hour, we did not even know what was causing the delay. Anxious parents and students sought information, but we had no clue,” Khan said, recalling the experience of the week before.

Shivakumar R, director, Career Launcher, a coaching institute, said, “There were far fewer students taking the retest, but this time, the whole process went off very smoothly. In terms of the difficulty level of the papers, there was little difference from the papers that were set for last week’s test.”

The retest was held to help those students unable to complete their question papers last time. Some of the students who attempted the test on Wednesday also appeared keener on a career in medicine than engineering, and admitted that they were only taking the test to keep the option of an engineering course open, in case they failed to get into medical college.

Lipi R, a student who emerged from the retest said, “My area of interest is biotechnology. The Mathematics paper was tough, but Physics and Chemistry were just fine.”

She added that she was not so confident of clearing AIEEE.

“Anyway, MBBS is my first choice,” she said, with a trace of disappointment.