CBSE,the authority to conduct All India Engineering Entrance Examination ( AIEEE) had started with online mode in 2011 also but in a very limited way and the response was also very very limited.Candidates were free to choose the mode of examination and a maximum of one lakh candidates could appear for online but hardly 5000 opted for this option out of 11lakh plus aspirants.
For AIEEE 2012, CBSE again has both online and offline mode but this year CBSE has made the provision to ensure that the number of online aspirants should be reasonably very high and 22 cities ( all big cities in India) will have only online mode of examinations.Those who wish to take offline exam from these cities have to move to other cities.
Conducting online test could have lot of plus points. A lot of authorities either conducting or contemplating to conduct online tests.But in other tests the authorities have a single mode of examination for all candidates,so there is no scope of confusion among the aspirants.
But the matter of debate in dual mode adopted by CBSE for AIEEE is on the issue of level playing fields between the two modes for the same test. For an entrance examination of the magnitude and of importance like AIEEE, the most critical part is to make sure that both offline & online version should not give any process or physical advantage to the candidates by virtue of which the score or ranks could be affected.
The opinions in these 22 cities are very divided among all stakeholders whether students & their parents, Coaching institutions or mentors in selecting online or offline mode.
The majority feel this safe to go for offline mode rather than experimenting with online mode.The type and level of concerns are also very varied.
Some have apprehension in regard to the the ability of the authorities to conduct online exam on such a mass scale without any snag as was happened with the first online attempt for CAT. Some feel that if they will choose offline ,then pressure of traveling to other cities could impact on the performance and others are of the opinion that online version will give them the advantage to choose the time and day or even some extra days for preparation.
But these cant be the major cause for concern as far as the level playing field in both modes are concerned.Thorough preparation for AIEEE syllabus requires long consistent hard work & intelligence and to think that getting extra 10-15 days to appear for exam can give someone advantage over others might not be so convincing.
If we analyse a bit deep into the examination ,then there could be two-three issues that could have some impact on level playing fields in two modes.Though these are just assumptions and may or may not applicable to all aspirants.As there are some aspirants who are so thoroughly prepared that these issues are immaterial for them.
But still if we analyse the previous year scores ,there are even 1-1.5 thousand candidates who score equal marks and this was very common among the students in the bracket of ranks 25000-50000. So here even a difference of 3-4 marks could result in a rank difference of 5000.
One important point in these two modes could be on level of difficulty:
If we assume 5-6 lakh candidates appear for online exam,then the question bank for each subject needed would be quite large considering the trend that questions never get repeated.To keep this large number of questions at the same difficulty level is not that easy.There is no idea given by CBSE as how many students will appear in one shift each day and whether all these candidates who will appear in the same shift on a given day will have same questions.
So there are two different scenarios for difficulty level viz
a. level of difficulty among the online aspirants
b. the level of difficulty in comparison to Pen –Paper mode & online aspirants.
Even in AIEEE 2011,when the entrance exam was held twice that mean only two set of question papers were there but still we heard lot of different voices on the level of difficulty.
In addition this might imply on online aspirants for even wider and thorough coverage of syllabus as to have large number of questions means wider coverage of syllabus and more conceptual nature of questions.
The other point to be considered for level playing field in these two modes could be the ease to attempt questions:
As the questions in AIEEE test are very conceptual, analytical & calculation based ,the synchronization for viewing and understanding the question on screen and immediately solving with the help of Pen –Paper might someway affect not all but to a lot of candidates because to have this continous neck & eye movement from computer screen to rough sheet could be a trouble maker.Even in the mock test which are available now the candidates should test this neck movement for entire 3 hours to check for any pain or discomfort in the neck.
Whereas for Pen Paper mode,the neck movement will not be there in viewing and solving the questions on the rough sheet and calculations could be done faster.Though for online aspirants clicking the answer could save time in comparison to circling in offline mode.
Even the panel from IIT Council in a presentation for conducting IIT JEE online has the major issues in regard to the deep conceptual and analytical nature of questions which needs lot of Pen & Paper calculations to solve the questions.In the present format the Pen-paper mode seemed more comfortable to the panel.
Still we hope that the authorities will take care of even the minutes of issues so that there wont be any discrepencies in the conduct of examinations in online & offline mode.
For AIEEE 2012, CBSE again has both online and offline mode but this year CBSE has made the provision to ensure that the number of online aspirants should be reasonably very high and 22 cities ( all big cities in India) will have only online mode of examinations.Those who wish to take offline exam from these cities have to move to other cities.
Conducting online test could have lot of plus points. A lot of authorities either conducting or contemplating to conduct online tests.But in other tests the authorities have a single mode of examination for all candidates,so there is no scope of confusion among the aspirants.
But the matter of debate in dual mode adopted by CBSE for AIEEE is on the issue of level playing fields between the two modes for the same test. For an entrance examination of the magnitude and of importance like AIEEE, the most critical part is to make sure that both offline & online version should not give any process or physical advantage to the candidates by virtue of which the score or ranks could be affected.
The opinions in these 22 cities are very divided among all stakeholders whether students & their parents, Coaching institutions or mentors in selecting online or offline mode.
The majority feel this safe to go for offline mode rather than experimenting with online mode.The type and level of concerns are also very varied.
Some have apprehension in regard to the the ability of the authorities to conduct online exam on such a mass scale without any snag as was happened with the first online attempt for CAT. Some feel that if they will choose offline ,then pressure of traveling to other cities could impact on the performance and others are of the opinion that online version will give them the advantage to choose the time and day or even some extra days for preparation.
But these cant be the major cause for concern as far as the level playing field in both modes are concerned.Thorough preparation for AIEEE syllabus requires long consistent hard work & intelligence and to think that getting extra 10-15 days to appear for exam can give someone advantage over others might not be so convincing.
If we analyse a bit deep into the examination ,then there could be two-three issues that could have some impact on level playing fields in two modes.Though these are just assumptions and may or may not applicable to all aspirants.As there are some aspirants who are so thoroughly prepared that these issues are immaterial for them.
But still if we analyse the previous year scores ,there are even 1-1.5 thousand candidates who score equal marks and this was very common among the students in the bracket of ranks 25000-50000. So here even a difference of 3-4 marks could result in a rank difference of 5000.
One important point in these two modes could be on level of difficulty:
If we assume 5-6 lakh candidates appear for online exam,then the question bank for each subject needed would be quite large considering the trend that questions never get repeated.To keep this large number of questions at the same difficulty level is not that easy.There is no idea given by CBSE as how many students will appear in one shift each day and whether all these candidates who will appear in the same shift on a given day will have same questions.
So there are two different scenarios for difficulty level viz
a. level of difficulty among the online aspirants
b. the level of difficulty in comparison to Pen –Paper mode & online aspirants.
Even in AIEEE 2011,when the entrance exam was held twice that mean only two set of question papers were there but still we heard lot of different voices on the level of difficulty.
In addition this might imply on online aspirants for even wider and thorough coverage of syllabus as to have large number of questions means wider coverage of syllabus and more conceptual nature of questions.
The other point to be considered for level playing field in these two modes could be the ease to attempt questions:
As the questions in AIEEE test are very conceptual, analytical & calculation based ,the synchronization for viewing and understanding the question on screen and immediately solving with the help of Pen –Paper might someway affect not all but to a lot of candidates because to have this continous neck & eye movement from computer screen to rough sheet could be a trouble maker.Even in the mock test which are available now the candidates should test this neck movement for entire 3 hours to check for any pain or discomfort in the neck.
Whereas for Pen Paper mode,the neck movement will not be there in viewing and solving the questions on the rough sheet and calculations could be done faster.Though for online aspirants clicking the answer could save time in comparison to circling in offline mode.
Even the panel from IIT Council in a presentation for conducting IIT JEE online has the major issues in regard to the deep conceptual and analytical nature of questions which needs lot of Pen & Paper calculations to solve the questions.In the present format the Pen-paper mode seemed more comfortable to the panel.
Still we hope that the authorities will take care of even the minutes of issues so that there wont be any discrepencies in the conduct of examinations in online & offline mode.
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