MBA aspirants to move court over discrepancies in CET paper pattern

Many aspirants took to social media to highlight how different students who appeared for the exam received questions with different paper patterns, and called the CET exam unfair.

Days after the common entrance test (CET) for admissions to various undergraduate and postgraduate professional courses ended, Master of Business Administration (MBA) aspirants have pointed at discrepancies in the question paper format. Many took to social media to highlight how different students who appeared for the exam received questions with different paper patterns, and called the exam unfair. Some students have decided to move the Bombay high court (HC) and seek a stay on the results.

MBA aspirants have alleged that the CET paper pattern was consistent with the one declared by the cell. (For representation)

CET exam is an entrance test for admissions to professional undergraduate degree courses including engineering, management, architecture, hotel management, pharmacy, agriculture and allied courses among others. After an initial delay due to the pandemic, the exam is being conducted in multiple sessions starting September 20 and will go on till October 10.

As per the official CET website, MBA aspirants’ entrance exam has a total of 200 questions which are divided in four topics—Logical Reasoning (LR), Abstract Reasoning (AR), Quantitative Aptitude (QA) and Verbal Ability (VA).

“The paper pattern mentioned in the official examination brochure states that LR will have 75 questions, AR will have 25 questions and the remaining two topics will have 50 questions each. What happened, however, is that some students got 90 questions in LR instead of 75 and others got 30 questions in the same topic. Similarly, some students got 70 questions in QA while others got only 50. This means the exam was not held on a common platform,” said one of the students who appeared for the entrance exam this year.

Students have raised their queries with the state CET cell, but yet to get a response. “The questions asked in the CET exam have been based on the syllabus decided by the state government. No out of syllabus questions were asked,” said CD Joshi, commissioner of the state CET cell. He added that the office in Mumbai has not received any complaints from students regarding discrepancies in the question paper as yet.

A state-based student group, Maharashtra Students Welfare Association has approached state minister for higher and technical education Uday Samant in this matter.

“Some of us, who had jobs, have already quit because we had all our hopes on the entrance exam going well and scoring well too. But with the discrepancies in the way exam was conducted, we are worried about scoring well,” said a student from Pune.