I think JEE should be retained in its old flavour (pre-1990s). There was no need to change the pattern. There is a necessity that the best of brains in the country are identified at the matriculation level. So what if JEE are more of problem solving in nature. I think at that stage of ones life ability to deal with diverse concepts to a measured level of proficiency is very very critical for building a solid foundation to learn advanced engineering.
I am not too sure if AIEE will ever stand up to that rigour. People who dont qualify in JEE can very well take AIEE or any other entrance exams and be content with the courses / colleges they get. Please retain JEE as a premier benchmark in the country to scoop the best of talent in the country.
I can understand why this all fuss created by IIT Kanpur or various IIT alumni. One joint exam will relieve the stress of students who has to take so many exams for getting an admission into engineering. It is true, that the top minds go to IITs and then NITs and then other engineering colleges. In common entrance exam, top minds will still go to IITs and NITs and i dont think that their IQ or intelligence will vary if the paper pattern changes. All over the world, there are examples of one competition exam such as GMAT for MBA, GRE for MS, SAT for UG etc.
Few people argues that because of tough paper of JEE, the quality of students is very high since they attempt and clear such a hard paper. If this argument is true, then why there are numerous examples where people got into IITs with a subject cut off less than 5-10%. Why now give admission to only those who score at least 50% in the tough exam.
Again i reiterate, single entrance will make life easy to students who has to give so many exams and take a lot of stress (Money and exam results). May not be true for rich or middle class students but holds true for poor people.
AIEE and IIT ranks are strongly correlated, infact in my experience all the toppers of AIEEE would anyhow have secured seats at IITs, and they also have the additional option of going to top NITs in the course of their choice.
Afraid to take your merit and your caste share of land as per 4th August 1932 Round Table Conference Resolution (Communal Award) and build your own nation?
How IITs are conducting JEE are exposed by RTI queries, where various IITs could not provide the formula for getting the cut off marks for each of the subjects. JEE exam is also no better than the proposed combined exam. Presently students take Engg. admission exam for two months (every sunday) and take lot of stress. there should be one exam for future generation.
Re: How IIT conduct JEE
by outofstep on Jun 11, 2012 08:28 PM
If JEE was not so different than other exams like AIEEE then how is it that a lot of people who get into AIEEE are unable to get into JEE?
Re: Re: How IIT conduct JEE
by shiv goyal on Jun 12, 2012 09:38 AM
Number of seats my dear :) IITs very few seats and AIEEE has at least 10 times seats. If JEE is the standard for evaluating the intelligence/ IQ of a student, then why subject cut offs of JEE is less than 5% -10% so many times. why not IITs set a rule that they will not admit any student who scores less than 50% in individual subject and overall 60%. and in that case, they sud give admit to only those students. Doesnt matter if the number of such students is 500 or 1000 or 100. Why in a IIT class, there are students who scored 80% in Physics/ Maths and students who scored 5%.
used to be a true challenge - both as a test for the grasp of concepts and as a test for the varied applications of those concepts.
This is no longer quite so true.
With the mushrooming of coaching centres that offer specialised training to take the JEE and the intense competition between those centres for market share, the range and wiles of the examiners in setting a challenging test appear to have been long bested (or at least matched) by those of the coaching 'gurus' in anticipating and unravelling those tests !
Unlike the 'Agrawal classes' or 'Brilliant tutorials' of yester-years which offered training that was just adequate for students willing to slog through the concepts on their own, numerous training centres of today have got so used to the ways of the JEE test setters that they offer commodified and nicely packaged test preparation in an 'easy-to-do-it-yourself' style.
Thus, unlike the coaching centres of old, those of today demand much more of repetitive practice through their well-charted and well-guided material and a lot less of strategy making or self-guidance through the concepts !
This, in the opinion of many of the IIT alumni themselves (and also in the opinion of a few trainers who have spoken in private), has led to a subtle yet sea change in the quality of the candidates succeeding at the JEE.
Re: There was a time when the JEE
by outofstep on Jun 11, 2012 08:22 PM
Agreed. But the solution is to make the JEE more concept based. I am sure the IIT's can take up this challenge. The solution is not to throw out the baby with the bath water.
Re: There was a time when the JEE
by piri on Jun 11, 2012 08:28 PM
While the list of successful candidates at the JEE till the 80s or 90s could be said to have been dominated by genuinely brilliant candidates, the lists of today are dominated more by those willing to sit down and slog in repetitive fashion through the material they receive !
And today's test results prove that brilliance and a little slogging may not quite match tireless and repetitive slogging through the road-map given by the coaching centres by the not-so-brilliant !!
Re: Re: There was a time when the JEE
by outofstep on Jun 11, 2012 08:32 PM
Absolutely correct and I again state that the solution lies in going back to the old testing method which threw up such brilliant students not to replace with an even more inane and brain dead method called ISEET.
Re: Re: Re: There was a time when the JEE
by piri on Jun 11, 2012 09:28 PM
Perhaps there also ought to be some kind of regulation against private coaching centres that make test preparation a monotonous and uni-dimensional affair !
Or better still, the IITs ought to look further from tried ways to set even more challenging tests ! This will force the coaching centres to discard at least part of their 'do-it-solely-from-our-material' style. However, such a scenario can also be even more unfair to the candidates preparing on their own without the support of any coaching centre !
Re: There was a time when the JEE
by desi twist on Jun 12, 2012 10:53 AM
Well said, good analysis. Probably the examiners should think of ways to break the standard pattern. Even though the JEE problems were challenging and pretty interesting, there was a level of sameness to them, which made preparation possible by sifting through past years' question papers.
Probably, one criticism that I have of JEE is that it siphons out students who are good at problem solving, but these students may not necessarily have good engineering aptitude.
Mr. Kapil Sibal and co. give the argument that ISEET is going to check the coaching classes. This is a downright lie since I don't believe that Mr. Sibal is being merely foolish or ignorant. I have personally talked to the top management and owners of coaching classes. They have clearly told me that they will benefit greatly from this new regime since now they can take the coaching right down to 6th standard because the student will now be under added pressure of doing well in the board exams too. What till today was not a market for them has suddenly opened up. They are already planning to introduce courses for board exams coaching. All the boards are now open to them. The politicians will make a lot of money now ,since quite a few own such coaching institutes
In India the Govt of the day, has only one priority i.e. to ensure return to powerin next election. For that they turn to their advantage the situation of limited infrastucture byharping upon policy of reservation to appease one or the anothr section with the sole object to garner thie rvotes. Now instead of increasing the number of high quality institutionsto cater to the need of increasing number of needs, they have invented the tool of admission test. This tool has created a muli billion dollar industry of coahing and a source of corruption for making space for favourtism by resorting to malpractices in so called admision test. Now the politicians also want their of flesh by tinkering with admission test procedure.
Re: Commom entrance test.
by outofstep on Jun 11, 2012 08:06 PM
Mr. Kapil Sibal and co. give the argument that ISEET is going to check the coaching classes. This is a downright lie since I don't believe that Mr. Sibal is being merely foolish or ignorant. I have personally talked to the top management and owners of coaching classes. They have clearly told me that they will benefit greatly from this new regime since now they can take the coaching right down to 6th standard because the student will now be under added pressure of doing well in the board exams too. What till today was not a market for them has suddenly opened up. They are already planning to introduce courses for board exams coaching. All the boards are now open to them. The politicians will make a lot of money now ,since quite a few own such coaching institutes.
The number of scams this Government has presided over is legendry. There has never been a more corrupt Government in the history of India. Look at the following instances and see how each one of them serves the foreigners : a) Pension Bill : Aims to allow fooreign pension funds to come in b) Retail Bill : Aims to allow large foreign retail chains to come in c) SEZ's :Organized land robbery by both large Indian corporates and foreigners. d) Education : Dismantling the JEE to allow foreign institutions to come in easily. Does this Government have any kind of legitimacy anymore? People who make petty allegations against IIT's are actually agents of the same Government and should be recognized as such for what they actually are on this forum.
We are only talking about an entrance test. It should be possible for a common entrance test and would benefit students enormously. IIT Kanpur or any other organisation can specify what level of marks they would consider as acceptable for them to admit a student.
Re: IIT Kanpur
by outofstep on Jun 11, 2012 07:49 PM
Dear Sir, Thanks for your very sane comment.While what you are saying is 100% correct the Government is not giving any kind of leeway to IIT's to decide cutoffs and weightages et al.they have been completely undemocratic. They adopted the report without even giving a chance to IIT's to comment or give their views. Please check these facts. I reiterate the report for ISEET was adopted without taking all stakeholders into confidence. If this does not show the ulterior motives of the Government. As for their spurious argument that this is going to check the coaching institutes or improve schooling the less said the better. we all know that problems with schooling run much deeper than can be even minutely corrected by an entrance exam.
Re: IIT Kanpur
by outofstep on Jun 11, 2012 07:51 PM
Dear Sir, Thanks for your very sane comment.While what you are saying is 100% correct the Government is not giving any kind of leeway to IIT's to decide cutoffs, weightages et al.They have been completely undemocratic. They adopted the report without even giving a chance to IIT's to comment or give their views. Please check these facts. I reiterate, the report for ISEET was adopted without taking all stakeholders into confidence. If this does not show the ulterior motives of the Government what else does. As for their spurious argument that this is going to check the coaching institutes or improve schooling the less said the better. We all know that problems with schooling run much deeper than what can be even minutely corrected by an entrance exam.
