BENGALURU: On Monday, students had a mixed bag of feelings as they finished day one of the Common Entrance Test (CET) 2019. While an ‘easy’ biology exam in the morning had them in high spirits, a lengthy mathematics paper in the afternoon session punctured their enthusiasm as many students found it difficult to complete on time. 

The question paper for the biology exam was as per the NCERT syllabus, students said. “It was easy, provided one has a good grasp of the NCERT textbook. 50 out of the 60 questions did not have misleading answer choices. The remaining 10 had two answers which was confusing,” said Karthik V, a student of Miranda Composite PU College. Experts that The New Indian Express spoke to also said that the paper was lengthier than previous years. 

Sangeeta, another student, described the mathematics paper as ‘a bit lengthy’. 
“It was not a bad paper, there were no numbering mistakes in the paper,” she said. Gagan Hegde, another students said that she found the paper simple but lengthy. “I found it difficult to finish the paper in time.’ 

Dr. Sridhar G, a mentor at Deeksha PU College agreed that the paper was lengthier than previous years. “An average student was able to complete around 35 questions in the allotted time. There were no errors found and around six questions were difficult and lengthy to solve,” he said adding that top scorers would be expected to correctly solve 58 out of the 60 questions. 

Students were also happy with the low levels of checking in place with most centers not having any frisking of students before they entered the examination halls. “We did not see much frisking as our faculty had told us to expect,” a student said. Sriniketh Saren, a student of Sri Chaitanya PU School said that there was no frisking at his centre.On day one of CET of the 1.94 lakh candidates registered 75.90% attended the Biology and 91.72% have attended Mathematics paper. Day two of CET will be held on Tuesday and students will take the Chemistry and Physics tests. 

“The paper was quite easy and did not have any errors, at least in the one I was given. I did not face any obstacles while preparing and studied from NCERT, as that is the primary book you can prepare from. We were not frisked while at the centre,” said Hemanth Shastri of Deeksha Center for Learning.Tension at exam centres in Mangaluru over AadhaarTension prevailed among students who entered the examination hall at CET centres in the city, after rumours about requirement for Aadhaar cards to enter the hall went viral in the eleventh hour. However, students were allowed in with their student ID card or board xamination marksheets.