IITJEE Advanced to become totally computer based from 2018

The IITJEE Advanced (Joint Entrance Examination Advanced), which governs B Tech admissions to the Indian Institutes of Technology, is likely to become a completely computer-based admission test from 2018. 
Also read: CBSE announced tentative dates for IITJEE Main and JEE Advanced 2018 

As per the current practice in IITJEE Advanced, candidates are given options of taking the examination in the computer mode, possible only at a handful of centres, or through pen-and-paper mode which is preferred by most of the students. If the exam becomes completely computer based, every center will be provided the questions through a CD or encrypted file. Then the students will have to open the question paper on a computer and answer a question with a click of the mouse almost similar to the pattern of the Common Admission Test (CAT) conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management.

Advantages of Computer-based IITJEE Advanced

• An entirely computer-based test would lead to faster evaluation.
• Save time of manual distribution and collection of answer papers and also scanning them.
• Improve fairness by removing possibility of scan failing to read an improperly blackened circle.

Further, to avoid repeats and string of flawed or ambiguous questions set, one of the possible solutions suggested has been a pre-prepared Question bank, screened thoroughly for ambiguity and other defects.

PROPOSALS ABOUT IITJEE ADVANCED

·     Fully computer-based test

·     More than one test a year

·     A question bank of 25000 questions

·     A mix of questions of varying difficulties, assessed on a scale of 1 to 10

·     Results in percentile instead of percentage, scores

America's Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), conducted for undergraduate admissions, set 90 per cent of the questions from a bank while the rest are experimental questions that carry no marks. If the students, unaware which questions are experimental and forced to attempt all, do not find the experimental questions ambiguous, opaque or too difficult, these are added to the question bank.

If the proposal for a question bank is cleared, each of the bank's suggested 25000 questions may be graded on a difficulty scale of 1 to 10 to ensure a judicious mix of harder and easier questions.

The ministry of HRD wants the questions to be such that Class 11 and 12 students can comfortably answer them. Currently, all the questions in a particular section of the paper carry identical marks. But under the proposed system, a question's difficulty level will dictate how many marks it carries. The ministry also wants the results to be declared in terms of candidate's percentile score as done in CAT, GATE etc.

What is percentile and how percentile score is calculated?

A candidate's percentile is the number of students ranked below him divided by the number that took the exam, and the dividend multiplied by 100.

However, it is not clear why the ministry believes this would be a better system. IIT Kanpur will conduct the JEE Advanced 2018.

(Source: Telegraph, edited)