Maths leaves IIT aspirants baffled

Thousands of students in the state who took the IIT-Joint Entrance Exam for admissions in prestigious institutes on Sunday had a tough time solving the lengthy and tricky questions of mathematics. The 7,500 students who took the exam found math problems in part one and two most difficult, while physics and chemistry were considered comparatively simple.

Moreover, the change in the paper style also had the students baffled. "The negative marking was increased to two marks per wrong answer this year from last year's one," said Drasthi Vashishtha, a class-XII pass out from Maharaja Agrasen Vidyalaya, Ahmedabad. "Mathematics was difficult and most of the time went in solving them, while chemistry was very easy," said Neha Vohra, a class XII passout from Seventh Day School, Ahmedabad.

The exam papers also carried a printing error as the subject-heads for mathematics and physics paper were interchanged. The candidates were immediately told about it and were assured that the error would not affect the evaluation.

The entrance comprised two papers with each paper having questions on physics, chemistry and mathematics. The first paper started at 9am while the second paper was held between 2 pm and 5pm.

Around 4.72 lakh students appeared in the examination all over the country. The students qualifying the test will be eligible for admission into the BTech programmes at the 15 IITs. The results will be announced on May 26.

(With agencies)