While the National Board of Examination for Medical Science (NBEMS) on August 23 released the NEET PG 2024 results, the students are still talking about it. Reason? Newly re-launched normalization process.
This time, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test- Post graduation (NEET PG) was conducted in two shifts. The timings for the first shift were from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm while the second shift was from 3:30 pm to 7:00 pm. While students were unsatisfied with this decision, the NBEMS claimed this was done to improve the logistics. Conducting the exam in two shifts will result in better supervision, better arrangements and co-ordinations in different states and exam centres.
As the exam was conducted in two shifts, NBEMS had to adopt a normalization process to ‘fairly’ grade all students. This, however, has angered students who claim that the normalization process has been unfair to many and has unknowingly favoured a selected few. “I am not saying that NBE did it on purpose, but like in every normalization process, some students have had an advantage too. We are demanding that NBE release the answer key and the formula they adopted for this normalized score. Maybe students and experts can help them spot any discrepancy or human error,” an aspirant said.
However, NBE has confirmed to indianexpress.com that there is no plan to release the answer key, which has been the norm followed by the organization since the beginning. “If you observe, no institute that conducts medical entrance exams releases answer keys. I am not counting NTA’s NEET UG in this, because I am talking specifically about the medicine-related exams. Even now, we will follow that and not release the answer key,” an official source from NBE told indianexpress.com.
When asked why NBE never released answer keys, the official said that since medicine has niche and nuanced areas, it can become difficult to generate new questions. “For example, if we have to ask questions about tuberculosis, then we will have a few things to cover, and if we start releasing questions and answers of those, then we will run out of the question bank very soon. Also, we do not want to become a coaching centre…” the official explained further.
While the NEET PG students have flooded the social media app, X (formerly known as Twitter), with complaints about this year’s results, the NBE stands firmly on its stand that there has been no discrepancy in this year’s results and there will not be any revisions.