The biggest entrance exam of the year is now just a few days away. The JEE (Main) offline will be held on April 6, 2014, and the online edition between April 9 and 19, 2014. Approximately 14 lakh students are expected to appear for the JEE (Main) 2014 and only 1.5 lakh students from all categories would qualify for the JEE (Advanced). Those who are in the top 20 percentile of their respective Class 12 boards and clear the JEE (Advanced), will also make it to the final merit list of the IITs.
The rest will be cleared for undergraduate engineering programmes at the NITs, IIITs, other centrally-funded technical institutions, and institutions funded by participating state governments. All aspirants can choose between JEE (Main) Paper 1 (BE/BTech) and JEE (Main) Paper 2 (BArch/BPlanning) or both.
JEE 2013 vs JEE 2014
About 25% questions in the paper are easy, 50% are average and 25% are difficult. The cut-off for JEE (Main) is generally around 60% for NITs & IIITs. The 40% marks from class 12 are crucial because they don’t contribute to merit but determine whether or not you will be selected.
Comparing the previous editions of the paper, RL Trikha, director, FIITJEE, says, “In JEE (Main) 2013, chemistry was difficult as compared to JEE (Main) 2012 and mathematics was relatively simple. Last year, the cut-off was 36%, which means that a candidate who scored 36% also qualified. But this year, the cut-off percentage is likely to go up to 55% and even higher for the NITs at 60%. Also, in 2013, 36% questions were easy, 54% moderate and 10% were difficult. This year, this trend might continue but more marks are likly to be allotted to concept-based questions.”
Gear up
“Knowing the topics alone is not important; putting what you have learnt to good use matters the most. So, speed and accuracy become vital and that can be achieved only through practice,” says Anand Kumar, founder, Super 30. According to Kumar, in JEE (Main), questions are easier as compared to JEE (Advanced). But the former can be more competitive because it has more number of questions than the second stage of the JEE. JEE (Main) comprises 90 questions. “Go in for serious revision of old questions papers which have single-choice questions. You can even look at questions in papers that are 20 to 25 years old in all the three subjects,” says Kumar.
Gear up
“Knowing the topics alone is not important; putting what you have learnt to good use matters the most. So, speed and accuracy become vital and that can be achieved only through practice,” says Anand Kumar, founder, Super 30. According to Kumar, in JEE (Main), questions are easier as compared to JEE (Advanced). But the former can be more competitive because it has more number of questions than the second stage of the JEE. JEE (Main) comprises 90 questions. “Go in for serious revision of old questions papers which have single-choice questions. You can even look at questions in papers that are 20 to 25 years old in all the three subjects,” says Kumar.