“Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star,” said W. Clement Stone.
These words hold true for engineering aspirants who slogged hard for IIT JEE Mains conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education. JEE Mains, the entrance exam for IIT, is a tough nut to crack; of more than 12 lakh students, only two lakh made the cut for next level, JEE Advanced. Thanks to that grind, students were at an advantage when they took the Common Entrance Test conducted by the Government of Maharashtra (MHT-CET) on May 5, 2016.
Unlike JEE Mains, which is based on the exhaustive NCERT syllabus of Classes 11 and 12, MHT-CET focusses only on the Class 12 syllabus of the Maharashtra State Board. Consequently, students who had prepared extensively for JEE, found Common Entrance Test to be a cake walk. “Chemistry was the best, Physics was slightly difficult, but I had enough of practice because of JEE,” said Anjuman Bilawal. She had scored 134 in JEE Mains 2016.
Many students had kept the state engineering entrance exams as a backup option. “I was not sure of clearing JEE Mains at all. MHT-CET was my only backup option, and this was very easy for me,” said Deepak Navale, who had scored 87 in JEE Mains 2016, and couldn’t qualify for JEE Advanced.
The no negative marking rule was another advantage for students who took MHT-CET. In JEE Mains, the students couldn’t dare to attempt questions where they had even an iota of doubt as it would mean a negative score. “I ran out of time towards the end of Mathematics paper. I randomly attempted questions and marked answers. I had nothing to lose as such. However, it would have been a huge risk in JEE Mains,” said Akhil Bhatt.
May those who missed the moon (JEE Mains), hit some stars (MHT-CET) and secure a seat in an `engineering college.