The decision on National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET UG) being conducted twice a year from 2019 onwards remain uncertain as of now. Since the Health Ministry has raised major concerns on National Testing Agency (NTA) conducting NEET twice a year and in online mode only, MHRD might rollback their decision. The final call is yet to be made and might be announced by August 20, 2018. Apart from Ministry of Health’s concern which was a humungous pressure of class 12 students and CBT being a drawback for rural aspirants, there are few more major concerns that might come up.
Concern 1: Decrease in Novelty of NEET exam
The Ministry of Health has also recommended to let the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) assist NTA in conducting NEET exam in 2019 as it has remained the conducting body of NEET for quite a good time and will be able to guide on the question selection and formation.
The first one is NEET twice a year and in 8 sittings will lead to creating a bigger pool of questions every year. As per few reports earlier, National Testing Agency (NTA) has made it clear that the computer-based test will have software that will pick questions from the pool of questions that is selected by the experts.
Each candidate at the exam center will get a different question at a particular point in time. One can easily estimate how much bigger a pool of question has to be to put this into practice. This puts a question mark on the Novelty of the examination.
The repetition of questions might increase each year. The larger the pool needed the chances of falling short of questions might arise.
Concern 2: Uneven Difficulty Level
In addition to that, the second concern is that how the difficulty level will remain even among all the NEET candidates? However, NTA in its defense has said that they will have a system that the questions that the software will pick will become easier or difficult in accordance with the answers that student mark. But again, this does not justify the fact on how the difficulty level will remain even among all the candidates.
Concern 3: The Coaching Centres
Next big concern is Coaching centers, which the government is fighting to decrease their influence on the students, will still continue to grow. Since the chances of repetition of questions will increase, these coaching centers will be easily able to crack the questions asked in the examination. Thus, the trend of training the students to solve a certain pattern of question instead of educating them will prevail. Thus, the ways to curb the influence of coaching centers will go in vain.
Concern 4: Level Of NEET Exam
Will the level on which the future doctors of the nation are judged remain reliable? Creating a pool of question at this gigantic level raises a question on the quality of the question. From where this large number of question come? The NEET syllabus is defined and will remain the same. Thus, setting a huge number of question will lead to a larger probability in out of the syllabus questions, repetitions, and mistakes. Thus may lead to drop in NEET exam level and ultimately the cutoff might drop.
However, if the final call says that NEET will be held twice and in online mode then there are a few advantages like leak proof examination and an extra chance to crack the examination. Thus, as every coin has two sides thus NEET being conducted twice has the same picture to itself. Now, with health ministry’s concern and other additional question arising in NEET 2019 conduct, it is clearly uncertain to how the candidates will be appearing in NEET 2019.
Anyhow, it is advised that the eligible candidates keep their preparation on track, twice or once cracking NEET will require all your hard work. Stay updated with us for more details on NEET 2019. The decision to conduct NEET in online mode and twice a year will be made soon by MHRD and we will update as soon as it is out.
Till then you can add your concerns in the comment section below. Let us know whether NEET twice a year and in online mode is a good idea or not.
