Chaos erupted after the National Testing Agency (NTA) released the provisional answer keys and the candidates’ response sheets for the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) Main exam in 2025, with candidates alleging glaring discrepancies in both documents.
They are claiming that the response sheets did not accurately capture or reflect the number of questions attempted or the answers marked during the exam. They further allege that several answers in the provisional answer keys are factually incorrect.
To recall, the NTA released the response sheets for the JEE Main 2025 Session 2, which was conducted between April 7 and 9, on April 12.
Following the discovery of these discrepancies, many aspirants and their parents took to X and other social media platforms to raise awareness of them, urging the NTA to take action.
According to a report by The Times of India, there are at least nine questions in the exam from mathematics, physics and chemistry whose answers are under dispute.
Experts say that while disputed questions in JEE answer keys are a regular occurrence in every session, the exclusion of answers from the response sheets at such a massive scale is unprecedented.
“Many aspirants told me that only half the number of questions they attempted were captured in their response sheets,” said Purnima Lodha Kaul, JEE mentor and founder of JEE One.
She adds that in the last three years, the NTA has been finding it difficult to capture correct answers during the evaluation of JEE papers.
“However, this year has unusually large numbers of questions left out of students’ response sheets,” she said.
Many parents have also pointed this issue out, with some of their children’s response sheets showing that all the questions in their paper as unanswered.
Candidates in distress
Kaul alleged that these are not isolated instances or something that happened in one or two exam centres.
“This is a widespread issue. Aspirants from all over India, including Maharashtra, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Noida have told me that they were facing this problem,” she said.
Due to this, candidates are now under additional stress, Kaul said.
“Each question carries four marks. However, due to the non-recognition of answers and the incorrect answer booklets, candidates end up losing five marks per question. These make a huge difference in their marks,” she explained.
She added that most candidates are even unable to meet the cut-off score, due to these discrepancies.
“Students are devastated. At 16-17 years of age, they studied and worked hard to clear JEE. Some of them even took gap years just to prepare. Is this how their hard work will be rewarded?” she questioned.
NTA unresponsive?
To add insult to injury, the NTA has released no official clarification or relief method for candidates to resolve these issues.
“I sent an email to the NTA, detailing these grievances. The NTA has not taken cognisance of the matter yet, and there has been no response either,” she said.
Further, even when the NTA generally has a provision to correct or re-evaluate disputed answers, that would also not be very helpful, she added.
“Usually, even if the students were to raise objections on questions, the NTA doesn’t respond to more than five questions. Now, candidates are reporting that half of their answers are missing. The relief given to them through this method would not be adequate,” she explained.
With students working hard, the NTA must be more mindful and careful while conducting the exam, she told EdexLive. “The least that students expect is a fair exam,” she added.
These allegations come at a time when the NTA is under extreme scrutiny over how it conducts examinations, especially after last year’s allegations of a paper leak in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG 2024) and nationwide protests against them.
Following the controversy, the Union Ministry of Education constituted a panel headed by former ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) Chairperson K Radhakrishnan to review the functioning of NTA, and make recommendations for its improvement.
