‘JEE Mains was tougher than last year’

Students who wrote the JEE (Mains) in the city on Sunday had different opinions about the paper. While some said the mathematics component took a long time to complete, some said that chemistry was challenging.

R. Raghuram, a Class XII student, said that while the paper overall was not too tough, the mathematics component was longer than physics and chemistry.

N.C. Sathvik, another student, said that a few questions in the chemistry component seemed twisted but he was able to answer them. “The general opinion was that while the paper was largely normal, it was tougher than last year,” he said.

Students had to answer 90 questions for 360 marks in the three-hour paper, which started at 9.30 a.m. The questions were divided into physics, chemistry and mathematics components.

Pawan Kumar, deputy director, FIIT-JEE Chennai, said there were some questions that were ambiguous and slightly tricky.

“A majority of the students, however, found the mathematics paper long and struggled to manage time,” he said.

‘Scoring high looks tough’

Stating that the paper was not a very easy one, Balaji Sampath, founder, Aha Guru, said most students felt that scoring a total above 230 would be hard.

“The physics component was comparatively the easiest as over 50% of the questions were from Class XII topics which students were most familiar with,” he said.

The weeks leading up to the exam had been filled with mock tests and revision sessions for students.

The scores from the test, conducted by the CBSE, will be used by colleges across the country for admission to engineering and technology programmes.

While the offline test was held on Sunday, the online component of the exam will be held in a week and several students this year have preferred to take the online exam owing to the fact that they get an extra week to prepare for the exam.

“We have also been attempting practice tests online to orient ourselves with the format,” said S. Abhishek, a class XII student.