20,000 students take AIEEE

[dwarakesh]

CHENNAI: An estimated 20,000 students in the city took the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) on Sunday, a significant jump from last year's 13,000.

18,000 seats

They are part of the nearly 10 lakh students across the country vying for 18,000 seats, of which 9,300 seats are in the 20 National Institutes of Technology.

The rest is allocated to 30 other colleges and universities.

There were 30 questions in each of the three parts, as against 35 each last year. "Negative marks for each wrong answer this year is one fourth the mark of a correct answer. Last year, it was one-third of the mark for a right answer," said Gita Prabhu, director of AIMS Education.

For most students, Chemistry was the toughest among the lot and Maths the easiest.

S. Karthikeyan, a student of S.B.I.O.A. Higher Secondary School, found Chemistry to be "easy but time-consuming."

S. Sivaraman from Salem who took the exam in Chennai was hopeful that the cut-off mark is less this year. "It wasn't an easy paper for me. If every one finds the paper difficult, then I stand a chance to get into one of the NITs."

However, a few students said mathematics was the most difficult of the three subjects.

According to the website of AIEEE, the results are likely to be out on or before June 7.

[ganeshbala]

Surprise at AIEEE

While the All India Engineering Entrance Examination(AIEEE) was easier than expected this year, there were a few surprises in store for students who appeared for the test on Sunday. While the single paper format was retained this year, the number of questions was reduced per section from 35 last year to 30 this year, making it a total of 90 questions.

The decreasing number of questions mirrors the trend last year, when the number of questions came down from 40 questions to 35 questions.

This year also saw the introduction of questions with variable marks for the first time -- out of 30 questions in each section, 24 questions carried 4 marks each and 6 questions carried 8 marks each. In 2008, all questions carried three marks uniformly. Negative marking was applicable this year as was the case last year.