NEET 2020: Undergraduate medical and dental aspirants have pointed at discrepancies in the assessment of their National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) answer booklets which were released by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Monday. Several students have taken to social media sites to highlight that the responses on their individual Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets, which are scanned copies of answer booklets, and that on the recorded responses sheet is different.
NTA is currently accepting challenges from students in case of discrepancies until October 7, however students feel this option is useless in certain situations.
“In my case, OMR sheet has wrongly captured an answer which has not been attempted (no colour bubble on OMR sheet). The drop down button in the challenges section does not give me the option to explain my situation,” highlighted a student on Twitter.
Also Read: NEET OMR answer sheet released at ntaneet.nic.in, raise objections before October 7
In another case, a student’s recorded response sheet is missing over 50 of the responses that he has marked in his OMR sheet. “In order to file a challenge with the NTA, I’ll have to pay ₹1,000 per question. How can I challenge 50 questions in such a situation?” asked another student, who has now written directly to the NTA seeking clarity in his particular case.
This year, after months of delay due Covid-19 and the eventual nation wide lockdown, NEET-UG was held across the country on September 13 where over 15 lakh medical and dental aspirants appeared for the exam. NTA released the answer key to the paper on September 26 and accepted student challenges to the answer key between September 27 and 29. Students however were upset that like last year, their OMR sheets were not released at the same time.
{{/usCountry}}This year, after months of delay due Covid-19 and the eventual nation wide lockdown, NEET-UG was held across the country on September 13 where over 15 lakh medical and dental aspirants appeared for the exam. NTA released the answer key to the paper on September 26 and accepted student challenges to the answer key between September 27 and 29. Students however were upset that like last year, their OMR sheets were not released at the same time.
{{/usCountry}}“Students have already raised challenges to at least two questions in the answer key from the biology section and now, they have to raise challenges to the OMR sheet separately. This is unfair and the NTA should take cognisance of this matter,” said the parent of one of the aspirants.
The window to send challenges is open till 8pm on Wednesday and as yet, the NTA has not released any statement regarding allegations of discrepancies in OMR sheets and response sheets made by students.
“The process of challenge is currently on. We will know the queries raised by students only once the challenge window is shut and we start going through the queries,” said Vineet Joshi director general, NTA.