How Some Talented Teenagers do not Get Selected in IIT-JEE?
A Proposal to Strengthening JEE
(All Disclosures from the past 4 JEEs are done by IITs under RTI Act)
IIT JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) is being conducted for admissions in IITs flagship B.Tech. and 5y M.Sc. degree courses for the past 5-decades. This examination is considered the most competitive examination in the world, however, this examination has been completely black boxed and nothing was revealed to candidates regarding their marks, model solutions etc. With the enactment of RTI Act 2005, JEEs started opening up.
This is a brief exposure in the direction of the recent disclosure by the NRI Nobel Laureate Prof. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan that he could not make to IIT JEE, coupled with many disclosures in recent past, in respect of IIT-JEEs, that the candidates’ selection is bungled up, (knowingly or unknowingly) with multifaceted errors by which many talented teenagers have been excluded.
1. Scenario One : He may possibly be one among the following highly talented 994 students (a sampler few included below), who were excluded in spite of scoring huge marks in IIT JEE 2006:
(All Disclosures from the past 4 JEEs are done by IITs under RTI Act)
IIT JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) is being conducted for admissions in IITs flagship B.Tech. and 5y M.Sc. degree courses for the past 5-decades. This examination is considered the most competitive examination in the world, however, this examination has been completely black boxed and nothing was revealed to candidates regarding their marks, model solutions etc. With the enactment of RTI Act 2005, JEEs started opening up.
This is a brief exposure in the direction of the recent disclosure by the NRI Nobel Laureate Prof. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan that he could not make to IIT JEE, coupled with many disclosures in recent past, in respect of IIT-JEEs, that the candidates’ selection is bungled up, (knowingly or unknowingly) with multifaceted errors by which many talented teenagers have been excluded.
1. Scenario One : He may possibly be one among the following highly talented 994 students (a sampler few included below), who were excluded in spite of scoring huge marks in IIT JEE 2006:
Maths
|
Physics
|
Chemistry
|
Aggregate
|
Sl. #
E1.
E2.
E3.
E4.
E1.
E2.
E3.
E4.
Result
(total marks in each subject were 184)
Not Qualified
Not Qualified
Not Qualified
Not Qualified
(total marks in each subject were 184)
Not Qualified
Not Qualified
Not Qualified
Not Qualified
36
|
116
|
127
|
279
|
101
|
96
|
54
|
251
|
91
|
94
|
53
|
238
|
75
|
104
|
52
|
231
|
And many other such 994 HIGH scoring candidates were Not Qualified.
Though, in the same examination, and in the same General category, in lieu of the above 994 candidates, the following 994 low scoring candidates were Illogically and Illegally declared qualified for admissions in IITs, by ignoring around four thousand of the candidates who were superior to the following candidates:
Sl. # Result
Though, in the same examination, and in the same General category, in lieu of the above 994 candidates, the following 994 low scoring candidates were Illogically and Illegally declared qualified for admissions in IITs, by ignoring around four thousand of the candidates who were superior to the following candidates:
Sl. # Result
Maths
|
Physics
|
Chemistry
|
Aggregate
|
37
|
48
|
69
|
154
|
45
|
56
|
55
|
156
|
45
|
56
|
55
|
156
|
S1.
S2.
S3.
S2.
S3.
(total marks in each subject were 184)
Qualified
Qualified
Qualified
Qualified
Qualified
Qualified
And many other such 994 LOW scoring candidates were Qualified
In view of the above: the obvious question is: Can selection decision be so ad-hoc to completely ignore the merit and performance? In spite of IITs many ex post facto desperate attempts, in the past 4 years, IIT could not yet justify how the high scoring candidates, as given in the Table (E1 to E4), were excluded.
For qualifying, a student is required to score some minimum cutoff marks. The cutoffs were precisely calculated to be 7, 4 and 6, respectively, in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, by the cutoff determination procedure, which was submitted by IIT under an affidavit in Calcutta High Court. Cutoffs as used by IITs were 37, 48 and 55, which cannot be calculated by any of the cutoff procedures submitted so far.
On being challenged, IIT, instead of correcting errors, took the stand that admission decision cannot be questioned, which was upheld by a single-bench of Calcutta Hon’ble
In view of the above: the obvious question is: Can selection decision be so ad-hoc to completely ignore the merit and performance? In spite of IITs many ex post facto desperate attempts, in the past 4 years, IIT could not yet justify how the high scoring candidates, as given in the Table (E1 to E4), were excluded.
For qualifying, a student is required to score some minimum cutoff marks. The cutoffs were precisely calculated to be 7, 4 and 6, respectively, in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, by the cutoff determination procedure, which was submitted by IIT under an affidavit in Calcutta High Court. Cutoffs as used by IITs were 37, 48 and 55, which cannot be calculated by any of the cutoff procedures submitted so far.
On being challenged, IIT, instead of correcting errors, took the stand that admission decision cannot be questioned, which was upheld by a single-bench of Calcutta Hon’ble
Proposal to Strengthening JEE (ver 1.0) Page 1 of 4 RajeevKumar.cse@gmail.com
Court. Appeal before a division bench was disposed by stating that the Hon’ble Court does
not have the expertise to look into the matter. Cutoff calculation is based on simple “mean”
and “standard deviation” of statistics, which can be found in school level books.
Can none among Millions in whole IIT system (including faculty, alumni, and students) calculate the mean and standard deviation and provide justice to realize 994 victims’ child- hood dreams to get admission in IITs? Why does IIT force victims to move to courts rather than making corrections themselves? Is it to delay the matter so as to make it infructuous?
2. Scenario Two : In contrast, in subsequent JEEs (2007 to 2009), it was revealed that students with as low as 5% marks in one of the three subjects were declared qualified. This is in complete contrast when students with as high as 29% marks (lowest) in any one subject were rejected. It was revealed that a student (Sl. No. 1 below) with as few as 10% marks in Mathematics was selected, in JEE 2009, and was placed with very high All India Rank of 1234, which enabled him to be admitted in any of the IITs. Others with poorer performance, have been selected for IIT admissions as shown in the Table below:
Sl. No. Maths Physics Chemistry Aggregate Result, AIR in CML
Can none among Millions in whole IIT system (including faculty, alumni, and students) calculate the mean and standard deviation and provide justice to realize 994 victims’ child- hood dreams to get admission in IITs? Why does IIT force victims to move to courts rather than making corrections themselves? Is it to delay the matter so as to make it infructuous?
2. Scenario Two : In contrast, in subsequent JEEs (2007 to 2009), it was revealed that students with as low as 5% marks in one of the three subjects were declared qualified. This is in complete contrast when students with as high as 29% marks (lowest) in any one subject were rejected. It was revealed that a student (Sl. No. 1 below) with as few as 10% marks in Mathematics was selected, in JEE 2009, and was placed with very high All India Rank of 1234, which enabled him to be admitted in any of the IITs. Others with poorer performance, have been selected for IIT admissions as shown in the Table below:
Sl. No. Maths Physics Chemistry Aggregate Result, AIR in CML
In JEE 2009 (total marks in each subject were 160)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
2.
3.
4.
5.
16 134 119
8 115 59
77 15 88
109 107 13
92 85 11
8 115 59
77 15 88
109 107 13
92 85 11
269 Qualified, 1234
182 Qualified, 7651
180 Qualified, 8113
229 Qualified, 3061
188 Qualified, 6869
182 Qualified, 7651
180 Qualified, 8113
229 Qualified, 3061
188 Qualified, 6869
In JEE 2008 (total marks in each subject were 162)
6.
10 106 76 192
Qualified, 5308
7.
8.
8.
122866196 Qualified,
4999
96 109 15 220
Qualified, 2903
The selection of above students with very poor marks in one of the subjects, is contrary to the
very basic policy of IIT selections, which states that a student should have basic knowledge
of all the three subjects for which a student should score marks above the cutoffs in each of
the three subjects. The cutoffs, in subsequent JEEs, were fallen to amazingly low levels,
and thus frustrating the very purpose of subject cutoffs. The cutoffs for the 4 consecutive
JEEs, having identical patterns of the examinations, were:
Subject cutoffs Aggregate
in one subject
Maths Physics Chemistry Cutoff
184 37 48 55 154
184 37 48 55 154
Y ear
2006
2006
Total Marks
Correct
calculation
7 4 6 178
2007
162
1 4 3 206
2008 162 5 0 3 172
2009 160 11 8 11 178
Selection of students with very low marks in one of the subjects, is contrary to JEEs own stated selection criteria. If such students were not qualified by not having reasonably good cutoffs (not as high as of JEE 2006) their places would have been taken by those students who have scored respectable marks, in each of the three subjects, as per the stated criteria.
If cutoffs are to be as low as Zero, then why to have the cutoffs? Simply allow every candidate scoring non-negative marks to be considered for merit list. Why to have a sword
2008 162 5 0 3 172
2009 160 11 8 11 178
Selection of students with very low marks in one of the subjects, is contrary to JEEs own stated selection criteria. If such students were not qualified by not having reasonably good cutoffs (not as high as of JEE 2006) their places would have been taken by those students who have scored respectable marks, in each of the three subjects, as per the stated criteria.
If cutoffs are to be as low as Zero, then why to have the cutoffs? Simply allow every candidate scoring non-negative marks to be considered for merit list. Why to have a sword
Proposal to Strengthening JEE (ver 1.0) Page 2 of 4 RajeevKumar.cse@gmail.com
hanging on every JEE aspirant’s head by a tender thread, when it has no effectiveness?
Why is it to put every JEE aspirant in undue stress, which ultimately results in bungling?
3. Scenario Three : Disclosure of question papers and model answers have revealed that there were serious evaluation errors in questions as well as some questions were directly picked from out-of-syllabi undergraduate (UG) level books. Chemistry paper of 2006 has 11 marks of questions wrongly evaluated and 12 marks of questions directly picked from UG standard books. In question paper of Mathematics 2008, it was revealed that 18 marks of questions were wrongly set/evaluated. It is more disturbing to know that, in the same examination, a student with a little score of 10 marks (6%) in Maths was found eligible to be admitted in prestigious IIT Kharagpur and other new IITs.
If the questions are wrongly evaluated and/or made open, it always penalizes talented students who spend enough time and try to come up with a correct and unambiguous solution. Similar is the case when out-of-syllabi questions are directly picked up from UG level books; in such cases students who attend coaching classes, are benefited, because coachings have expertise in these matters and help students to memorize such likely to be questions. As reveled by Nobel Laureate that he possibly did not get through JEE because he did not go for coachings due to a conservative look.
4. Scenario Four : It was disclosed that many seats including in General category were lying vacant in spite of high demand for every seats in IITs through JEEs. This is due to the reason that IITs do admissions only once, though it is done multiple times elsewhere. In 2009, for the first time, IITs did second round of admissions by which some of such vacant seats were filled. It was also revealed that many of such vacant seats were filled through back-doors by IIT Kharagpur till 2005. In 2006, seats, high in demand, were shown artificially filled. It was also revealed that all the selected faculty wards in 2006, from IIT Kanpur and Kharagpur, scored amazingly high marks in Chemistry; this phenomenon cannot occur without knowing personal identities of the candidates, which implies that such a prestigious examination has no sanctity. When directed to open up the answer scripts of such high scoring faculty wards, it was revealed that the scripts were destroyed in undue haste and against their own norms. It was also found that wards of influential professors (Directors, Deans, etc.) are routinely admitted in some IITs. Ward of an IIT Director was caught impersonating in JEE. Due to such bunglings, many wait-listed/genuine candidates were deprived off their admissions in IITs through JEE.
The above is not the end. There are many instances where IITs can come clean and adopt effective transparency. For example, perhaps IIT-JEE is the only examination which does not disclose the marks scored by candidates at the time of result declaration. IIT-JEE does not disclose the model answers after conduct of the examination. IITs disclose the marks and model answers after almost 3-4 months of examination conduct when the whole admission process is complete (including second round of admission); then even for the apparent errors, IITs take refuge that “admission decision cannot be questioned.”
There existed many simple and workable solutions by making minor changes and bringing effective transparency to avoid the above scenarios. A few proposals are summarized below:
3. Scenario Three : Disclosure of question papers and model answers have revealed that there were serious evaluation errors in questions as well as some questions were directly picked from out-of-syllabi undergraduate (UG) level books. Chemistry paper of 2006 has 11 marks of questions wrongly evaluated and 12 marks of questions directly picked from UG standard books. In question paper of Mathematics 2008, it was revealed that 18 marks of questions were wrongly set/evaluated. It is more disturbing to know that, in the same examination, a student with a little score of 10 marks (6%) in Maths was found eligible to be admitted in prestigious IIT Kharagpur and other new IITs.
If the questions are wrongly evaluated and/or made open, it always penalizes talented students who spend enough time and try to come up with a correct and unambiguous solution. Similar is the case when out-of-syllabi questions are directly picked up from UG level books; in such cases students who attend coaching classes, are benefited, because coachings have expertise in these matters and help students to memorize such likely to be questions. As reveled by Nobel Laureate that he possibly did not get through JEE because he did not go for coachings due to a conservative look.
4. Scenario Four : It was disclosed that many seats including in General category were lying vacant in spite of high demand for every seats in IITs through JEEs. This is due to the reason that IITs do admissions only once, though it is done multiple times elsewhere. In 2009, for the first time, IITs did second round of admissions by which some of such vacant seats were filled. It was also revealed that many of such vacant seats were filled through back-doors by IIT Kharagpur till 2005. In 2006, seats, high in demand, were shown artificially filled. It was also revealed that all the selected faculty wards in 2006, from IIT Kanpur and Kharagpur, scored amazingly high marks in Chemistry; this phenomenon cannot occur without knowing personal identities of the candidates, which implies that such a prestigious examination has no sanctity. When directed to open up the answer scripts of such high scoring faculty wards, it was revealed that the scripts were destroyed in undue haste and against their own norms. It was also found that wards of influential professors (Directors, Deans, etc.) are routinely admitted in some IITs. Ward of an IIT Director was caught impersonating in JEE. Due to such bunglings, many wait-listed/genuine candidates were deprived off their admissions in IITs through JEE.
The above is not the end. There are many instances where IITs can come clean and adopt effective transparency. For example, perhaps IIT-JEE is the only examination which does not disclose the marks scored by candidates at the time of result declaration. IIT-JEE does not disclose the model answers after conduct of the examination. IITs disclose the marks and model answers after almost 3-4 months of examination conduct when the whole admission process is complete (including second round of admission); then even for the apparent errors, IITs take refuge that “admission decision cannot be questioned.”
There existed many simple and workable solutions by making minor changes and bringing effective transparency to avoid the above scenarios. A few proposals are summarized below:
Deficiencies in the existing JEE
|
Subject cutoff marks vary widely
from Zero (too low) to 55 (too high)
across 4 JEEs having similar patterns
|
Sl.No
1.
1.
Workable Reforms/Measures Suggested
− Determine subject cutoffs by Minimum of top 25% or 30% of all candidates,
− It will ensure cutoffs to be stable, meaningful and have a large enough pool of candidates.
− Determine subject cutoffs by Minimum of top 25% or 30% of all candidates,
− It will ensure cutoffs to be stable, meaningful and have a large enough pool of candidates.
Proposal to Strengthening JEE (ver 1.0)
Page 3 of 4 RajeevKumar.cse@gmail.com
Evaluation errors in model answers,
which are disclosed after 3-4 months
of examination when all admissions
are completed
|
Multiple choice based questions do
not give right candidates with
analytical minds
|
Marks are not revealed at the time of
result deceleration; IIT discloses
marks after admissions are completed
|
Many seats are lying vacant
unnoticed to the public; some of such
seats were filled by back-door; seats,
high in demand, were shown
artificially filled
|
Students do not get much time after
XII examination, thereby they do not
concentrate much on XII exam
|
Avoid tampering of Optical Response
Sheet (ORS) by knowing personal
identity of a candidate; VVIP wards
were found to score amazingly high
marks
|
ORS were destroyed in haste
|
Impersonation of candidates
|
Many candidates were selected from a
single room/centre
|
Admission irregularities cannot be
challenged due to signing a
declaration in the application form by
the candidate and the parent
|
2. − Disclose model answers on examination day,
− Ask the public to send feedback regarding
correctness within a week (as in CET, Karnataka) − Freeze the answers for final evaluation.
3 − Introduce differential grading,
− Each option of multiple options is assigned
different marks, in positive or negative, based
on its closeness to the correct solution,
− Set proper/balanced questions within syllabi.
result declaration to counseling.
Best is to have a single examination (replacing JEE, AIEEE and all other states’) by which a student (securing a UID and a score) can seek admission to one of the engineering college.
*** Rajeev Kumar, Educationist and RTI Activist
Winner (Runner-up) of Best RTI Citizen Award 2009 for above Disclosures under RTI Act rajeevkumar.cse @ gmail.com
03222-277653 (R), 09434-7474-00 (M)
For details, visit http://eklavyajee06.blogspot.com/
Proposal to Strengthening JEE (ver 1.0) Page 4 of 4 RajeevKumar.cse@gmail.com
correctness within a week (as in CET, Karnataka) − Freeze the answers for final evaluation.
3 − Introduce differential grading,
− Each option of multiple options is assigned
different marks, in positive or negative, based
on its closeness to the correct solution,
− Set proper/balanced questions within syllabi.
-
− Disclose marks with result deceleration,
− Error, if any, can be corrected before
admissions are closed.
-
− Have multiple rounds of admissions,
− In fact, best solution is to have a single
admission counseling for JEE and AIEEE,
-
− Prepare a wait list and fill seats by sliding,
-
− Make counseling fully on-line and publish
filled seats on day-to-day basis,
-
− Make deadline for students to join, else allot
those seats to wait-listed candidates, and
-
− Publish the filled-in and vacant seats.
-
− Prepare a wait list and fill seats by sliding,
-
− Shift examination by a 4 - 6 week period,
− There is still enough time left for admissions,
− Have XII syllabi in JEE.
-
− Take additional safeguards,
− Marking of answers in ORS should be done by
black pen (as in AIEEE) instead of a HB pencil
or supply carbon-copy of ORS (as in UP-SEAT),
− Do not entrust coded/raw data in same hand.
-
All records must be kept at least for one year.
-
Take finger prints at the time of application,
examination, counseling and admission .
-
− Randomly allocate examination centre,
− Strengthen exam-conduct/invigilation.
-
− Amend declaration in application form to
have a choice of not waiving the right to
challenge the apparent irregularities without
having any bearing on candidature,
result declaration to counseling.
Best is to have a single examination (replacing JEE, AIEEE and all other states’) by which a student (securing a UID and a score) can seek admission to one of the engineering college.
*** Rajeev Kumar, Educationist and RTI Activist
Winner (Runner-up) of Best RTI Citizen Award 2009 for above Disclosures under RTI Act rajeevkumar.cse @ gmail.com
03222-277653 (R), 09434-7474-00 (M)
For details, visit http://eklavyajee06.blogspot.com/
Proposal to Strengthening JEE (ver 1.0) Page 4 of 4 RajeevKumar.cse@gmail.com
