MH-CET 2018: 4 lakh appeared, most found exam easy

Many highlighted that the Chemistry section was more theoretical than the previous year’s and Physics questions were a ‘little tricky’

More than four lakh students appeared for the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (MH-CET) for engineering, pharmacy and agriculture courses on Thursday and most found the paper very easy. Many highlighted that the Chemistry section was more theoretical than the previous year’s and Physics questions were a ‘little tricky’. However, the overall consensus was that students found the paper scoring.

“It was an easy paper compared to the Joint Entrance Examination-Mains which was conducted last month. A few of the physics questions were tricky, but not difficult. I am satisfied with my performance,” said Ashwin Shenai from Mansukhbhai Kothari National School, Pune.

This year the first time that the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) had decided to include 20% of class 11 syllabus of the Maharashtra State Board along with 80% of class 12 syllabus. This factor, however, wasn’t a cause of trouble for the students. “Since we covered much of the class 11 portion while preparing for JEE, it wasn’t a problem for us. Most of my friends also found the paper easy,” said Atharva Chavan, 17, another candidate.

This year had the highest number of applicants with a 14% increase as compared to the previous year.

Sudhanshu Sinhal, managing director of a city based coaching centre, said, “On the whole, the paper was quite easy. Students said the CET paper was half the difficulty level of the JEE Mains paper. The fact that there was no negative marking also helped take the pressure off students as they would not be penalized for wrong answers.”

MH-CET comprises of three papers — each with 50 or 100 multiple choice questions of one and two marks. Paper 1 is mathematics, paper 2 is physics and chemistry and paper 3 is biology (which is only for pharmacy aspirants).

“Apart from one or two questions, the paper was easy, although, students might have found the paper a bit lengthy,” said Professor Saurabh Joshi, who added that the top scores could be a perfect 200 this year.

For the first time, agriculture aspirants also registered for the MHT-CET, as the state decided that admissions to seven undergraduate courses will be done on the basis of the aspirants’ scores in the state and national entrance tests, including MHT-CET.