MHT-CET exam sees Maharashtra failures

This year’s Maharashtra Health and Technical Common Entrance Test (MHT-CET) results are disastrous, with only 12.76% of medical aspirants and a little over 50% of engineering aspirants clearing the exams.

The results that were declared on Tuesday left students and parents worried as only 37 students scored above 190/200. Last year, 183 students had scored more than 190.

Of the 2,54, 208 students taking the engineering exam, only 1,23, 611 cleared it this year. The percentage of students clearing the medical exam was 15.23% last year and 18.01% in 2009.

Experts attribute the poor performance on students’ lack of understanding of core concepts. “There was no major change in the paper pattern,” Anil Jadhav, officer with the Directorate of Technical Education, Fort, said. “But we found most students learn by rote. So, we decided to tweak the questions and see if students can use their logical abilities to answer them. Unfortunately, they could not. Some even failed to complete the paper.”

Among the three regions in the state, the highest number of eligible candidates (medical and engineering combined) is from Marathwada (14.66%), followed by Vidarbha (12.56%). The rest of Maharashtra, including Mumbai, has the lowest number of eligible candidates.