Aspirants for the first CUET exams (Common University Entrance Test) at a centre at Raisoni Engineering and Management college in Wagholi on Friday. (Express photograph by Arul Horizon.)As heavy rains lashed several parts of Maharashtra, its trickling effect was seen on the attendance of candidates who had registered to appear for the first ever Common University Entrance Test, as a large number failed to turn up for the exams.
In fact, at the G H Raisoni College of Engineering in Wagholi, Pune, only 98 of 159 registered candidates turned up for the morning slot (9am to 12pm) while for the afternoon slot (3pm to 6.45pm), 83 of 140 registered candidates appeared for the entrance exams, confirmed officials at the centre.
“Students at this centre are not just from Pune but from nearby cities as well. The absenteeism could be because of the heavy rains across cities, making it difficult to travel. However, if students write to NTA with genuine reasons, they could get another chance since the entrance is being conducted in phases,” said an official requesting anonymity.
Meanwhile, heavy rains did pose a challenge for the candidates as well as the fact that there were no nearby centres and many had to travel from other cities to give the tests.
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Aryaa Kulkarni, a resident of Pune was in Nashik two days ago when she received her admit card. “Since both Nashik and Pune were on red alert due to rains and flooding in parts, I was worried about reaching the centre. My father is in the Army and could not come to drop me, so I travelled alone from Nashik and my family was very concerned too. Even after coming here, finding the centre was a problem since it is in a very obscure place and the Google map location was wrong. I just reached five minutes prior and was nervous I would miss it.”
She also pointed out certain administrative errors like the admit cards asked students not to carry their own masks and they would be provided with disposable ones but the centre made no such provisions.
Many candidates from other cities complained that they were assigned Pune as a centre, despite it not being their top choice.
An Army officer from Colaba, Mumbai who requested anonymity said he came a day prior and stayed in a hotel to avoid last minute glitches. “It takes five hours from Mumbai on a regular day to reach Pune, we had heavy rains and landslides on the expressway so we didn’t want to risk it and decided to come a night prior. But what I don’t understand is that my daughter chose Pune as a fourth option, there are centres in Mumbai where exams will happen at later dates, why did she have to come here?” he said.
Kalyan resident Sangam Singh, brother of Shagun who wrote her CUET exams in Pune, also came one day in advance to avoid last minute glitches.
Nikhil Ghule, a resident of Aurangabad came to Pune only to give the Sociology paper on Friday, he has four other papers, all in his home city on August 5. “I don’t know why they allotted me only one paper in this city? I travelled six hours one way in the heavy rains and I came in early because I was afraid of getting late. There are several students like me, who are made to travel just for one subject,” he said.
In fact, many outstation candidates had decided not to appear for the exams due to the difficulty in travelling due to rains. “My son has been allotted three cities, Pune, Nashik and Mumbai. It may be since he has applied to several central universities. We had seen reports of certain areas being flooded; unfortunate cases of people being swept away due to rains so my son told me he wanted to skip the exam today. I asked him to treat it like a road trip with me and come along for the experience. But travelling is challenging in the current situation,” said Satya Kulthe, father of candidate Kiran from Nashik.
In terms of the exam difficulty and overall feedback of the examination, students said it wasn’t too tough and most questions were based on NCERT syllabus.
Aakarsh Pathak, a CBSE class 12th student from Bavdhan, Pune said
“The English paper was quite generic; in fact, it was too easy while the general test was basically current affairs. The Mathematics paper was the only mentionable one, it was from within the NCERT syllabus. Though all the questions were easy, the distribution of time wasn’t done properly, in terms of the questions to time ratio. It takes two minutes to solve a maths question and they gave us 45 minutes for 50 questions while the English paper was so simple, I solved it in 15 minutes. Even questions were basic like synonyms and antonyms or spellings based, even the CBSE term 1 exam was tougher than this one.
Avantika Kumari, Patna resident who has been in Pune since three months for preparation of various entrance tests, said she found the English and General Test very easy. “The legal test was a bit lengthy, I feel we needed more time to attempt it properly,” she said.
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