These candidates were from six centres — two in Chhattisgarh (one each in Balod and Dantewada), one each in Meghalaya, Surat, Haryana’s Bahadurgarh, and Chandigarh.
On June 23, more than 1563 candidates will take the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, Undergraduate (NEET UG) 2024 exam again, thanks to the National Testing Agency (NTA).
The impacted students will now have two choices, as previously reported by The Indian Express: they can choose to retake the exam on June 23 or accept the score they were initially granted without the grace marks. A senior NTA official said, “The exam will be conducted in the same six cities but different centers.”
NTA made the same announcement during a Supreme Court hearing today.
A committee led by NTA and the Union Education Ministry was established on Saturday to examine the normalization strategy that was implemented for more than 1,563 applicants who received “grace marks” in lieu of “lost time” for taking this year’s NEET UG exam. Two UPSC members, one from NIOS, and one from MoHFW made up the committee. The applicants who were impacted came from six centers: two in Chhattisgarh (Bahadurgarh and Dantewada), one each in Meghalaya, Surat, Chandigarh, and Bahadurgarh in Haryana.
The NTA has further stated that the special committee will investigate comparable grievances brought out by students till June 4.
What is the normalisation process?
This committee, which included three academicians and a former chairman of UPSC, has now determined that the NTA must retake the NEET UG exam for a total of 1563 students who received grace marks based on a normalization formula that NTA chose from a 2018 Supreme Court ruling about a comparable CLAT incident.
The CLAT 2018 exam’s normalization formula modified a candidate’s score according to the efficiency of their answers and the amount of time they wasted.
The NTA also used the same procedure, and 1563 candidates received time-loss compensation. The updated scores of these applicants range from -20 to 720 points, according to NTA. Due to the compensatory marks, two applicants’ scores among them also happen to be 718 and 719, respectively.
For a few other entrance exams, like JEE Main and CUET, where the exam is held on separate days, NTA often utilizes normalized scores. Since NEET UG is administered on the same day for every applicant, this approach has never been followed. In such circumstances, however, the normalisation formula is made available to the public beforehand. But the NTA has recently stated that it will attempt to include this material in NEET UG information bulletins going forward.
The decision was made shortly after a retest and a probe overseen by the Supreme Court into the purported paper leak and inconsistencies brought to light by students on social media were demanded by students, instructors, and a number of opposition parties, including the Congress, AAP, DMK, and the Maharashtra government.
Easy paper, several factors behind inflated number of toppers
For a few other entrance exams, like JEE Main and CUET, where the exam is held on separate days, NTA often utilizes normalized scores. Since NEET UG is administered on the same day for every applicant, this approach has never been followed. In such circumstances, however, the normalisation formula is made available to the public beforehand. But the NTA has recently stated that it will attempt to include this material in NEET UG information bulletins going forward.
The decision was made shortly after a retest and a probe overseen by the Supreme Court into the purported paper leak and inconsistencies brought to light by students on social media were demanded by students, instructors, and a number of opposition parties, including the Congress, AAP, DMK, and the Maharashtra government.
There have never before been 67 toppers for NEET UG. Since 2019, there hasn’t been more than three NEET UG toppers in any one year. NEET UG is the only entrance exam required to get into any MBBS program in the nation. Each of the years 2019 and 2020 had a single topper. There were two last year, one in 2022, and three in 2021.
17 + 6 + 44 = Record toppers
The NTA reports that six of the 1,563 candidates who received “grace marks” and finished in the top six received scores of 720/720.
Furthermore, 44 additional students were awarded “grace marks” for correctly answering a physics question, which resulted in their being honored with an AIR 1. According to NTA, an outdated NCERT book contained an inaccurate remark in a multiple-choice Physics question about atoms. On May 29, NTA published a tentative solution key, indicating that Option 1 is the right answer. However, 13,373 students objected, arguing that NTA’s response did not line up with previous NCERT textbooks. According to the NTA, the new NCERT book was used as a draft for the question paper.
44 students had their scores increased from 715 to a flawless 720 as a result of this decision, placing them among the exceptional group of NEET-UG toppers this year.
The total number of toppers rose as a result of these two additional scenarios: first, 17 students were thought to have received an AIR 1, to which 6 students were added owing to time loss grace marks, and 44 students were added owing to an incorrect Physics question.
Compared to last year’s 20.87 lakh registrations, a record 23.81 lakh students registered for NEET UG this year. Ninety-six lakh boys, thirteen thirty-two lakh girls, and seventeen transgender students took the exam, according to NTA data.
