NEET 2021: Quick analysis of exam based on students' reaction

After a long delay and amid several requests for postponement, the national medical entrance exam, NEET 2021, is over. Reportedly, over 16 lakh candidates took the exam this year and are in race to secure a MBBS seat in medical colleges across the country. As per the government data on medical education, there are close to 84,000 MBBS seats in the country.

After the exam was over at 5 pm, experts have said that the paper was difficult due to the pattern and the time-consuming questions.

As announced before, this is the first-time internal choices were given in the question paper. 

This year’s NEET paper had new elements like match the column and assertion-reasoning questions, similar to past years’ AIIMS entrance exam. 

According to experts, at Vidyamandir Classes, based on students feedback, in Chemistry, all chapters were covered in the question paper. There were more numerical-related questions than theoretical questions. 

In Physics, the numerical questions were very lengthy. Subject experts have said the paper was tough in comparison to last year.

Experts have said that many questions required more than one minute to be solved and have given the opinion that this could have consumed the time of the students, since it was expected that the questions should be solved within 1 minute.

They have also said that in the match the column questions, after matching an answer it was found that there is another answer also valid for that particular question, and therefore students have marked two answers for the same question.

The Zoology paper is tougher than last year’s, experts have said. The difficulty level, they say, is due to the paper being a lengthy one. Anyone who has concepts clear will find the paper easy to attempt.

With these feedbacks, all subject experts have said that the NEET 2021 cut-off is expected to dip slightly from last year’s.

(Author Saurabh Kumar is Director Academics, Vidyamandir Classes. Views expressed here are personal.)