Aspirants worried about counselling as 67 students score AIR 1 in NEET UG

With as many as 67 candidates scoring 720/720 marks, announced in the NEET UG 2024 results, there is a growing chatter over the number of toppers. In 2023, there were only two toppers, in 2019 and 2020 there was only a single topper in both the years. On social media, several aspirants have been vehemently demanding a re-examination and a section of aspirants are pointing towards irregularities in the exam and making a reference to the paper leak in May. However, the biggest challenge for the students who have scored decent marks is getting a seat in a desired college during the counselling round. With a large number of students scoring top marks, most toppers wanted to get a seat in AIIMS Delhi. 

 

 

 

A health ministry official spoke to Education Times and expressed concerns over an unrealistic number of students making it to the AIR 1. “It is hard to believe that there are so many toppers this year. With 67 candidates scoring perfect scores of 720/720, the biggest challenge will be faced during the allotment of seats in medical colleges. There are only 30 to 40 seats in AIIMS Delhi for general-category students, these 67 students will find it difficult to find a seat at AIIMS Delhi. This will create problems for the counselling authorities, as there are limited seats under all categories. There was a need to find an evaluation criterion that could have allotted different ranks, even if the scores were the same.” 

 

In the NEET exam, each right answer gets 4 marks, while 1 mark is deducted for each wrong answer. Clarifying the scores of 718 and 719 that two students have received this year, the NTA circular read, ‘NTA has granted grace marks to the students based on the loss of examination time that was ascertained using the CCTV footage and such candidates were compensated with marks based on their answering efficiency and time loss.’ The circular also stated that 1,563 candidates have been compensated and the revised marks of such candidates vary from -20 to 720 marks. Amongst these, the two candidates’ scores are 718 and 719, respectively, due to compensatory marks.

 

Contradicting NTA’s circular, Dr Rajeev Ranjan, former medical superintendent, Patna Medical College, Bihar says, “NTA, in its clarification, has stated the use of scaling formula and have granted grace marks based on the time loss of the students. The students who have checked their scorecards and have scored well might not be able to get admission into the required medical colleges due to so many similar ranks and reservation policies in these top-ranking government medical colleges, which will further demotivate the students.”

 

 

NEET UG 2024 exam question paper included topics from the NCERT class XII physics textbook, which has created discrepancies in the scores. Out of the 67 candidates who got 720/720 marks, 44 are on account of the revision in one answer key of Physics and 6 are on account of compensatory marks for loss of time. Dr Ranjan says, “If there was a question with two right answers, logically, the NTA should have eliminated that question instead of granting marks to the students who selected any one of the two correct answers. Such decisions will increase the ambit of selection instead of elimination.” Marks for one question, which had two right answers, will not lead to making additional toppers, as only one question cannot make this huge difference, says the health ministry official. The NTA has stated that the number of candidates who appeared in 2023 was 20,38,596, while the number of candidates who appeared in 2024 increased to 23,33,297. The increase in candidates has led to an increase in the high scorers due to a larger pool of candidates.

 

Dismissing the possibility of students scoring well after NMC reduced the NEET syllabus to 79 chapters from the previous 97 chapters, retaining the topics focusing on core concepts, the health ministry official says, “The reduction will not help students score this well, as it depends on the kind of question paper that was set for the exam. There are claims that the question paper was quite easy. Usually, there are questions of three categories: Easy, Medium, and Tough. There is also a provision for negative marking; maybe the marking was not done properly. There are possibilities that there were flaws in setting the question paper for NEET UG 2024.”