Bangalore: For students appearing in the Indian Institutes of Technology -Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE 2007), it was a tough paper, as expected.

About 2.52 lakh students took IIT-JEE 2007 across the country on Sunday. This entrance test was for 4,600 seats in the seven IITs.

Preetesh Kumar Pradhan, a 12th standard student of Kendriya Vidyalaya, NAL, who spoke to The Hindu during the lunch break, said the first paper was very tough. ``I did not go to any coaching centre. I just prepared for the examination with the CBSE syllabus. I knew the entrance test would be tough, and I was prepared," he said.

Khushboo Kindo (18) took a one-year break and appeared for the entrance test on Sunday. ``I completed my second year pre-university last year from Jyothi Nivas College. I have been preparing for the entrance test for the past year. This is my only chance. I hope I qualify," she said.

Karuna Bennur, a parent, said her son Sidhant (18) complained that the first paper was very tough. ``In fact, I overheard students saying that during the lunch break. Many students were saying they did not want to attempt the second paper," she said. Sidhant, a student of Our Own English School in Dubai, has undergone training for almost two years at Career Launcher. He and his mother had come down to the city for the test.

Shalini J., a 12th standard student, said her board examinations got over only on March 22. ``We did not get enough time to prepare for the entrance test. The mathematics questions were very tough. I have a feeling that the second paper is going to be tougher.''

Mahaveer Kumar Jain from the IIT-Madras, who was one of the officials in-charge of the entrance test, said at the MES College alone, some 350 students were taking the test. ``If they do qualify, I will be teaching them physics in the first year.''

He said the number of students appearing for the test had come down. ``The decrease can be attributed to the fact that we have now restricted the number of attempts to two."

Additional quota

Last year, about three lakh students competed for the 4,078 seats in the seven IITs. To accommodate the additional 27 per cent quota for candidates belonging to Other Backward Classes, the IITs had increased their seats. But with the Supreme Court's stay on the OBC quota, the Union Human Resource Development Ministry is still undecided on whether to increase the seats or not. But for students, the first concern will be their entrance test results, expected by the end of May.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail