Despite increasing COVID cases, a lot of opposition from NSUI and petitioners in the court, the Karnataka Government went ahead and conducted CET exam on July 30. The first day's exam comprised the Biology and Mathematics for PUC 2 students. Thousands of students who attended exams across 83 centres in Bengaluru were accompanied by their friends and parents. While the students were under a lot of pressure to maintain a safe social distance, wearing masks and using sanitisers to avoid coming in contact with the virus, they were happy about doing well in the Biology subject.
Shirley Sangeeta, a PUC 2 student from Sri Chaitanya PU College, says, "The Biology exam was easy and I was able to finish it on time. However, I believe it was not necessary for the government to finish the exam in such a hurry. We know that Bengaluru has recorded more than 50,000 cases and who knows that most of us might come in contact with the virus in this exam rush. Yesterday, the situation was also intense and no one could actually predict if the CET exam was going to happen or not. It was such mental stress for me personally."
She further added, "Since there were not many students to write Biology, we did not notice much rush inside the college campus. The exam hall had 24 students and each desk had two students I will be attending NEET exams in the month of September as I want to take up medicine. And I hope to get a good ranking in CET also."
S Rudresh, who is a VidyaDaan scholarship beneficiary and a student of Deeksha, also opined the same. He says, " The KCET Biology paper was easy and straightforward. I could finish the paper on time. It felt good to write the exam after such a long wait. The extra time boosted my confidence as it helped me prepare well.’
Meanwhile, Veena, a parent of PUC 2 student who was waiting at the Sheshadripuram Composite PU College expressed her anger towards the improper arrangement made by the government. She said, "I travelled all the way from Bommasandra to Sheshadripuram with my daughter as her exam centre has been allotted here. It is almost 25 km distance to travel. We need to wait for our children to come out and it takes at least two hours. There is no proper place for us to wait. The police and college authorities will shoo us away even if we wait on the footpath. In a situation like this, the Examination Authority and the government should have been little lenient in allocating nearest exam centre to people travelling from far away places. My friend's son who stays in Basaveshwara Nagar had to travel to the exam centre located in Hesaraghatta."
During the break between papers, students were busy going through their Math notes and were anxiously waiting to attend the exam. Milind Chippalakatti, National Head, Academics, Deeksha who analysed the Maths paper for us, says, "The paper was easy, students can complete this paper in 60 mins. An average student can score around 25 marks out of 60 marks. The question paper pattern was similar to last year’s question paper. Most questions were formula based. All questions were well within the framework of NCERT textbook.”
Revin Andrade, a PUC 2 student of St Jospeh's PU College, says, "The Maths paper was not difficult and the long lockdown time gave me extra time to study. I did not bother if the exams would be conducted or not, my focus was only on preparation. I want to take up Architecture in Engineering and apart from CET, I will be writing AIEEE and JEE also."
Amidst all this, we went through some of the videos posted on twitter that showed lack of preparedness of the government and the colleges to maintain social distance at the entrance of the exam centre. Netizens posted pictures and asked the Minister if he was fulfilling the promises made infront of the bench yesterday for the safety of students. Some of these pictures included students and parents rushing together at the Jain College, Government PU College in Suggappa Layout, Sheshadripuram Composite PU college and other places.
