If you search about anything related to education on Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc. – in one way or another it leads to JEE exam – wondering why?
For an instance:
On 12th of Feb. 2024 – students and teachers protested online – made a lot of videos on the results of JEE session 1. Students along with teachers were not satisfied by the results and the methods used to normalize the results.
Number of applicants registered for JEE exam in 2024 – 12,31,874 and out of this 12,25,529 appeared for the exam (99.48% presence).
Some videos were also doing rounds in the Social media showing some students reaching late for the exam and were not allowed in the exam centers and hence were counted absent in the test.
People are talking about what happened in the first session of JEE, what might come in second session and so on.
In this whole circus of JEE and NEET, very few people know about the challenges faced by students in another national exam of INDIA that too conducted by NTA – CUET UG (Common University Entrance Test – Undergraduates)
Problems faced by students
In 2022, NTA made this test as Computer based for the first time. In year 2022 approximately 15 lakhs students registered for this exam and in the current year (2024) this number is approx. 20 lakhs.
Almost double the number of JEE applicants – still nobody is talking about the difficulties they are facing.
- Applications started late than expected – around a month late – though the exam dates are same as last year, which resulted in anxiety faced by students and hence loss of number of hours which could be put productively into preparing for exam.
In 2023 – applications were started on 09 Feb, this year it started on 27 Feb. (though the planned test dates were approx. same) (last two weeks of May)
- The MOCK tests for CUET UG given by NTA on their website are not loading – leading to further anxiety among students
- The number of applications are increasing every year – with which one thinks that the cost of testing will come down but that’s not the case – it is rising at a surprising rate (much greater than inflation rates released by the government)
To understand it, look at the % increase yearly in exam fee:
| 2024 | ₹ 1000 (3 subjects) | ₹ 333/subject | 33 % increase from 2023 | Additional costs per subject for choosing extra subject is greater than these values. |
| 2023 | ₹ 750 (3 subjects) | ₹ 250/subject | 54% increase from 2022 | |
| 2022 | ₹ 650 (4 subjects) | ₹ 162/subject |
One wonders, when the number of applicants is increasing, why is the cost increasing instead of going down?
One reason could be that to accommodate more number of students, NTA has to arrange more test centers but no such official data is available for analysis!
Any solutions for MOCK tests for students
Many private players are trying to fill this gap for students. One such team is Egzami®. They have made math test series for students to practice for CUET UG 2024. The details of which can be find here: https://www.egzami.com/s/store
Their video solutions, test analysis and prompt customer support for students as well as parents – is what makes them different.
Year 2022
National body that conducts test – NTA (National Testing Agency). It has provided few MOCK tests for every exam it conducts but the link for NTA MOCK tests for CUET UG is not working at the time of writing this article.
This leads to a lot of frustration among students who are preparing for the exam and wants to practice and check their preparedness.
These problems can be easily solved by NTA, given the size and budget it has. It feels like it is just not on their agenda right now!
Share this article with maximum people so that it reaches to NTA and students get their issues resolved before it’s too late!
