It was sheer relief for 20.8 lakh students and their families on Sunday, May 4, after the decider to get selected for medical undergraduate courses concluded on Sunday.
Anxious parents stood patiently outside tightly guarded NEET-UG exam centres for over three hours till their children stepped out after 5 pm.
The exam, comprising of 180 questions, with 45 queries each in Chemistry, Physics, Botany and Zoology, is assessed for 720 marks, with four marks per answer. A negative marking of one is given for every wrong response.A total of 480 students attended the exam at the Kendriya Vidyalaya-4 at Delhi's Cantonment area.
The New Indian Express caught up with a few candidates after their exam.
A recurring response was that the Physics paper completely caught them off-guard as the queries were quite tough and one minute was just not enough.
Pawni Singh said, "The Physics questions were totally unexpected. Most of us had enough knowledge about Circuits but questions on Alternate Current had appeared. I found the paper tough."
A student requesting anonymity said, "The Physics questions required much calculations to be done. One minute was just not enough for one question to answer. So, I ended up leaving many under this section blank so that I do not answer something wrong and lose marks for it. It might be the case with many other students too and so I expect the cut-off to be much lesser than 600 this year."
Siva Shree's mother was completely relieved it was over. "My mother has stayed awake with me for many nights at a stretch to study for the exam. I found Biology easy and on expected lines. Maybe, if I had practised better, I could have done well in Physics. Still I feel I might get into a private medical college," Siva Shree said.
Neerja Arup, attempting the exam for the second consecutive year said that questions were lengthy this time and the paper was tough too.
"It was quite easy last time but unfortunately it was marred by malpractice. I have less expectations of scoring high this time," she said.
Treating this whole exercise as a learning affair was Himanshi C had a few thoughts. "I have no expectations at all. I took up the exam just to experience and understand how it is to write this competitive exam. I wrote it with the knowledge I had for my 12th exams and attempted just 100 out of 180 questions. I will prepare for it seriously for a year and take NEET 2026 earnestly," she said.
