Each JEE, NEET examinee may get a unique question paper from next year

Starting from 2019, the National Testing Agency mandates competitive exams to be computerised

Soon after the human resource development ministry announced the handing over of competitive exams like JEE, NEET to the National Testing Agency (NTA), a new set of rules have been prepared and are ready to roll from next year. The NTA now mandates competitive exams to be all computerised, meaning which, the examinations will rely heavily on technological tools like Artificial Intelligence, Psychometric analysis and Computer-based adaptive testing.

With this, each candidate will now get a unique set of questions, with the software picking questions randomly for candidates.

In a statement, Vineet Joshi, director general of NTA, said: "The test will be 100 per cent safe... The highest level of encryption will be used so that no one can hack into the system," the Times of India reported.

The changes to the examination pattern include distracting candidates with multiple choice questions to fox them. "And with millions of questions (items) to be prepared instead of a couple of question papers for a particular test, you will be at the mercy of the software's algorithm, which will pick up items at random for your test at a particular date, based on the set of difficulty-level," an official was quoted as saying by the Times of India.

This move will help the NTA do things faster -- from setting the questions to preparing the correct answers.

NTA is also undertaking psychometric analysis of previous years' test. This is done to:

1) Test how well each question has fared so as to determine its level of difficulty.

2) To check if the distraction system (multiple choice for a question) applied to the candidates functioned well. This is primarily done so that the ones who know the subject are able to answer correctly.

3)To check how well the question paper has functioned and to see if these tests were reliable.

 

Advantages

1) Candidates will be able to review or revisit questions later once the easier ones are done

2) Candidates will be given the liberty to change their date, centre and schedule within a test period in case the test date clashes with something important

3) And as has been reported, in case the candidate is unhappy with their scores, he/she can retake the exams again after three months

4) 'No cheating'- The test will be free from cheating since the designed software will assign questions differently to each candidate

The National Eligibility Test (NET) would be conducted in December and JEE (Mains) twice a year, in January and April.

National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) would be conducted in February and May, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar told media at Shastri Bhawan in New Delhi.