A candidate from Tamil Nadu's Thanjavur district, R Arvind, has scored 710 in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the results of which were declared on November 1. He has secured an All India Rank (AIR) of 43.

A student of Blossoms Public School, Arvind has cleared NEET in his first attempt. He now hopes to secure admission in the Thanjavur Medical College but there is a very compelling personal reason for this choice. “My mother studied Pharmacology at Thanjavur Medical College. Whenever we passed by the college, my mother used to tell me about it," he told The Hindu. 

Arvind added, "She wanted me to attend the college and continue the legacy." Arvind’s mother Velambal, who is currently employed with LIC, said he had prepared on his own. Her husband, Ravichandran, is an assessment officer at the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. 

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"It was in Class 11 that I started preparing for NEET. As I could not go out anywhere (owing to the pandemic), I used most of my time to prepare for NEET,” he reportedly said.

Arvind turned towards solving the NEET test papers of 2019 and 2020, once he had completed the required syllabus. “Everyone said it was an easy paper, so I decided to solve them. In the last two months, I used flash cards. I aligned my preparations with NCERT. The main focus was on NCERT and to stay true with it,” he told the daily.