Parents wait outside an examination centre in Mumbai as their children take JEE Advanced on Sunday. (Photo: Vaishnav Mudbhatkal)

The D-Day is finally here.  Around two lakhs engineering aspirants, who had cleared the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains, are taking the next level of the exam, JEE Advanced, at 115 cities across the country today. Their score will decide if they can secure a seat at the Indian Institutes of Technology or other reputed engineering institutes for admission to various bachelor’s degree programmes. 

The exam is being conducted in two phases, Paper I and Paper II.The Paper I started at 9 am and got over at noon. The total number of marks in this Paper is 186, and it had about 10 sets. Many candidates, who came out of the examination centres here in Mumbai, looked satisfied and happy with their performance in the paper. However, an unexpected paper pattern and total marks did not come as a surprise for the students.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Arpita Kulkarni, said, “Paper I was good. It was not as difficult as I had expected.” Another aspirant Sanjana Dubey, who agreed with Kulkarni, said, “I was relaxed, and the paper was quite easy. I am expecting a good score.”

But not all students were calm and composed during the exam. Abhishek Gupta was one of them. He said, “Nervousness wrecked my paper. I have messed it up badly. I am sure that I would not be able to score good marks.”The Paper was not as tricky as JEE Advanced 2015. “It had fewer questions from Mechanics, given that it is an important topic,” said Khushi Banik.

Aspirants are expecting an easy Paper II as well; it will start at 2 pm and end at 5 pm.

JEE Advanced is being conducted by seven zonal Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) under the guidance of Joint Admission Board (JAB). A candidate can attempt this exam a maximum of two times and that too in consecutive.

Inputs by Megha Mehta, Sanjana Donkar, Vaishnav Mudbhatkal.