NTA to take action over alleged errors in JEE Main Session-II preliminary answer keys

If the subject-wise experts committee finds the contested question to be incorrect, ambiguous or an incorrect answer key, it will recommend the NTA to drop the question

Hyderabad: With students and experts flagging errors in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main session-II preliminary answer keys, this is what the National Testing Agency (NTA) is likely to do with the contested questions.

Following the release of preliminary answer keys for the JEE Main session-II held on April 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8, students have found errors in as many as nine questions. They suggested dropping the questions.

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As per the rules, the NTA, which conducted the examination, constitutes a subject-wise experts committee to look into the objections raised by students on the preliminary answer keys. If the committee finds the contested question to be incorrect, ambiguous or an incorrect answer key, it will recommend that the NTA drop the question.

In such a scenario, candidates who appeared for the examination in that particular session where the incorrect/ambiguous question appeared will be awarded full marks. This means a student will receive four full bonus marks if a question is dropped. This is irrespective of whether or not the candidate attempted that question.

The JEE Main paper-I (BE/BTech) comprises 75 questions with 25 each from mathematics, physics and chemistry subjects for a total of 300 marks.

If a question is dropped, the number of questions becomes 74, but the candidate is still marked out of 300. Dropped question marks are added to students’ totals who appeared in that session of the exam.

As the JEE Main is conducted in multiple sessions with different question papers, raw scores obtained by students after adding bonuses are normalised using the percentile method. The percentile scores are calculated based on the relative performance of all candidates who appear for the examination in that particular session.

For example, if a student in session I got bonus marks, he/she is compared to others who appeared in session I only. Similarly, if session-II students with no bonus marks are compared to students of the session-II.

“Since the normalisation is done and percentiles are given, students need not worry about their scores,” said Uma Shankar, All India IIT Coordinator, Sri Chaitanya Junior Colleges.

As per reports, the NTA has removed 12 questions from the JEE Main 2025 session I final answer key due to errors. This was the highest number of questions dropped in recent years.