NEET UG 2024 Controversy Explained: The government has canceled the grace marks awarded to 1,563 students of the NEET exam. Now these students will have two options – either they can appear in NEET UG counseling without grace marks or appear in the exam again. The re-examination of NEET will be conducted on June 23. The result will be declared in June itself so that the counseling which starts in July is not affected. Out of the 1563 students who have secured grace marks who will not appear in the examination, their results will be calculated on the basis of the scorecard without grace marks. That means no grace marks will be added to their score. In fact, the issue of giving grace marks to some students was the main reason for the NEET result controversy. NEET candidates have also demanded a re-examination alleging paper leak but the National Testing Agency (NTA) has denied the paper leak.
Know here what is the controversy about NEET exam and result, why the commotion? Now what happens next?
1. How can there be 6 toppers from the same exam centre?
Many students say that the roll numbers of 8 students belong to the same category in the merit list of NEET toppers released by NTA. 6 out of 8 students with serial number 62 to 69 are toppers securing rank 1. Six of the eight examinees are from a single examination center located in Bahadurgarh, Haryana. Candidates and exam experts have questioned the transparency of NEET regarding this. Why 7 out of 8 students name is not written in the list? 6 out of these 8 students scored 720 out of 720 marks. The other two are 719, 718.
Clarification of NTA
The NTA has clarified that students in Haryana wasted their time at examination centers, due to which they were given grace marks as compensation. NTA said this is just a coincidence. The average result of the center from which 6 toppers have come is already higher than the results of other centers in the country.
Why grace marks were given?
NTA said- Several petitions were filed by NEET UG 2024 candidates before the High Court due to the wastage of their time during the examination at some centres. Subsequently, a Grievance Redressal Committee was formed, which considered the complaints based on factual reports and CCTV footage from the officials of the examination centers concerned. To compensate for the wastage of time, these students were given grace marks.
Grace marks were awarded on the basis of marks, what was its formula?
NTA said- it found out how much time those students wasted and given grace marks based on their ability to answer. He was given grace marks based on the formula laid down by the Supreme Court in its decision on 13 June 2018. A total of 1563 candidates were given grace marks due to loss of time.
2. Why did NTA not inform about grace marks earlier?
Candidates say why NTA did not inform about grace marks earlier. Why was the result announced suddenly? The grace marks were declared on the day of the result itself. The original merit list of NEET should be released even without the grace marks.
3. Information about Grace Marks was not in the notification.
NTA has not given any information about grace marks in the notification. Then why suddenly this policy was implemented as a result, on what basis? After much uproar, NTA has revealed how many students of which center have been given grace marks.
4. Grace Marx’s Formula Normalization Revealed Irrational
The NTA has said that the grace marks were awarded based on the normalization formula based on the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision. Students say that they had no knowledge of normalization formula before. That Supreme Court case was about law students. It may not be applicable in NEET NTA has not stated how many grace marks are given for lost time? The format of law paper and NEET paper was different.
5. Why has NEET’s tie breaking policy been changed at the time of results?
Why was NEET’s tie breaking policy changed at the time of result? Why was the 8th rule inserted when there was no mention of it in the notification, only 7 parameters? The person who applied first will be given higher rank in merit, why this was not stated earlier.
6. How the 718 and 719 marks came about, when this is impossible.
NEET students argued that the NEET paper is of 720 marks. Each question carries four marks and negative marking of one mark for wrong answer. If a student corrects all the questions then he gets 720 marks out of total 720 and if he skips one question then he gets 716 marks. If he gets one question wrong, he will be left with 715 marks. In such condition it is impossible to get 718 and 719 marks.
Clarification of NTA
The NTA has said that many students’ time was wasted during the examination held on May 5. The students complained to the NTA about the loss of time. Grace marks were awarded to candidates as compensation in view of student complaints and related court cases. During this period, a normalization formula was implemented for some candidates which was designed to deal with the time loss situation after the Supreme Court decision on June 13, 2018. His marks came to 718 or 719 due to giving grace marks.
7. Why 67 toppers in NEET?
This time a record 67 candidates have topped NEET. Including 53 boys and 14 girls. All these students scored 720 marks out of 720 (99.997129 percentile) and all got 1 rank. The rush of toppers and the sharp rise in cut-offs has increased the tension of students and parents regarding admission in medical colleges. NTA says this is due to changes in NCERT books. Marks of 44 candidates increased from 715 to 720 due to two answers to one question in Physics. Apart from this this time many candidates were also given grace marks as compensation for wasting time in the examination.
NEET exam had a question on Atom in Chemistry. Students were asked to choose an answer from four options indicating which of the two statements given in the question is true. The controversy erupted after the NTA objected to the provisional answer key after NCERT found that two of the options given in its old and new books were correct. If two answers are correct then these students got bonus marks.
NTA said easier examination and increase in registrations are also the reasons behind the increase in toppers. NTA said, “NTA was to give 5 marks to all the students who chose either option. As a result, the total marks of 44 students increased from 715 to 720, increasing the number of toppers. The NTA clarified that although this reason played a major role, the fact that the paper was comparatively easy this year and the number of registrations increased a lot. It has also increased the number of toppers.
8. What to say on the torn OMR sheet of NEET?
With reference to the viral video of a NEET UG candidate claiming irregularities in the scoring of NEET UG 2024 and receiving torn OMR answer sheets in the mail from NTO, he said
No torn OMR answer sheet was sent from official ID of NTA. OMR answer sheet is correct and score is accurate as per official record.
9. Result 10 days ago cam
Why was the NEET result declared on the same day as the Lok Sabha election results? While his probable date was 10 days later. On this NTA said that NEET result has been declared as per procedure. The result is declared after a few days after the answer key is declared. To ensure the timely completion of the admission process of 23 lakh students, the result of the examination was declared within 30 days.
10. Now what will happen to the counselling, what will happen to the petition pending in the Supreme Court?