Compensatory marks given to 1,563 NEET aspirants for loss of time: NTA

Mumbai: The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Thursday said that 1,563 students were compensated for the loss of time during the NEET-UG 2024 exam. The statement, however, did not mention the quantum of marks (or a range), or the formula used for determining it. The statement also claimed that the increase in the numbers of candidates giving the exam – from 20.3 lakh to 23.3 lakh – led to an increase in high-scorers.
With widespread discontent among aspirants over the results, different sections of students are planning to move court. Students and parents across the country are alleging lack of transparency in this year’s results, prompting the NTA to come out with a clarification.
The NTA statement clarified that 50 out of 67 students who scored the perfect 720 out of 720 marks, benefitted from grace marks. While 44 students got grace marks for a question in physics, where two options were considered correct due to the differences in the old and new editions of NCERT textbook, six bagged compensatory marks for loss of time. The NTA clarified that a few writ petitions, raising concerns over loss of exam time, were filed before the High Courts of Punjab & Haryana, Delhi and Chhattisgarh this year. A grievance redressal committee consisting of eminent experts was constituted by the agency. “The committee considered the representations based on factual reports of the functionaries and CCTV footage. The loss of examination time was ascertained, and such candidates were compensated with marks based on their answering efficiency and time lost, as per the formula established by the Supreme Court in a judgement from June 2018,” said the statement, adding that the revised marks of such candidates vary from -20 to 720 marks in the exam.
“How can these grace marks be given, when it was not mentioned in the information brochure? Many of these beneficiaries are likely to take up the sought-after seats. Also, many students in Maharashtra also lost 5-15 minutes but they did not go to the court,” said a parent, who plans to move court, but for a different issue over an out-of-syllabus question in radioactivity. Dr Santosh Kadam, president elect, IMA-Maharashtra, said that giving grace marks for loss of time in a competitive exam like NEET, where the stakes are very high, is unfair. “How do you convert loss of time to marks? There also seems to be bunching of students with similar high scores, pushing the corresponding ranks higher,” he said.
Explaining the higher cut-offs in this year’s exam, NTA said that increase in the cut-offs reflected the competitive nature of the exam and that the average score of qualified candidates has also risen from 279.41 in 2023 to 323.55 this year, leading to the cut-off increasing from 137 to 164. The NTA has also reiterated its stand that the integrity of the examination was not compromised and has denied any case of paper leak.