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Opinion

NEET 2021: Here's why this year's paper posed a significant challenge to the students

Spark Academy's Director, Yasasvi Santosh, tells us why this year's NEET threw a bit of a curve ball at the aspirants

Yasasvi Santosh

NEET 2021 was successfully conducted on September 12, 2021. The overall difficulty level was moderate. Here are the five reasons why students found NEET 2021 on the tougher side:

 1. Uncertainty around the exam due to the pandemic: There were multiple rumours as to whether the NEET 2021 would be postponed or not. This led to confusion among candidates which affected their preparation. 


 2. New format: Students were introduced to a two-section format this time where they had an option to attempt 10 questions from 15 questions and students overall had 200 questions to choose from in comparison to a traditional format of 180 questions. Adaptability proved to be the key. Match the following, Assertion and Reasoning questions were more in number. The new format also introduced more questions of these types.


3. Lengthy Physics paper: In comparison to the previous year, Physics questions were more application-oriented hence the students found this section the most difficult in comparison to the previous year. The overall difficulty level also increased because of this. 


Final assessment: The good news for the students is that cutoffs are expected to be lower compared to the last year hence they need not get disheartened after checking the key.

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