Delhi: Four candidates have scored the highest 715 marks out of 720 in NEET medical entrance exam this year. However, unlike last year, these four have not got the top rank jointly. The National Testing Agency (NTA) used a new ‘tie-breaker’ policy to give the first position to Tanishka of Rajasthan. Delhi’s Vats Ashish Batra got the second rank, while Karnataka’s Hrishikesh Nagabhushan Gangule and Rucha Pavashe got the third and fourth rank respectively. According to NTA officials, nine factors in a pre-determined sequence were used as ‘tie breakers’ to decide the rank.
A senior NTA official told PTI, “In case of candidates securing equal marks, preference will be given to the candidate securing highest marks and percentile in Biology (Botany and Zoology). Thereafter the candidate securing highest marks and percentile in Chemistry and then the candidate securing highest marks and percentile in Physics will be given preference.”
According to him, the candidates with fewer wrong answers than correct answers in all subjects in the exam, followed by Biology (Botany and Zoology) had the lowest wrong answer ratio to correct answers, followed by Chemistry with the lowest number of correct answers. Other deciding factors such as the lowest wrong answer ratio in the exam and the highest wrong answer ratio vis–vis correct answers in Physics will be the basis for deciding the ranking.
The official said, “If there is still a tie between the candidates, then the candidates who are older in age, then their NEET application number in ascending order will be used as the tie-breaker. It is important that each candidate gets a unique rank for counseling purposes and that is why no two candidates are tied on the same rank this year.” Last year, three candidates jointly got the top rank. The names of these candidates were Mrinal Kuteri from Telangana, Tanmay Gupta from Delhi, and Karthika Nair from Maharashtra. The official said, “Earlier also there was a tie-breaker formula, but despite this, three candidates were given joint first rank last year.
From this year onwards, we have decided to adopt a new policy.” The result of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Graduate (NEET-UG) to be conducted for admission to medical courses was declared on Wednesday. Out of 17,64,571 candidates who appeared in the examination, 9,93,069 (56.3 percent) have passed. This time also the girls won. The number of boys passed is 4,29,160, while the number of girls passed is 5,63,902.
This year the qualifying marks limit is less as compared to last year. The range of qualifying marks for the General and EWS categories was 720-138 in 2021, while this year it was fixed at 715-117. The cut-off for OBC, SC/ST categories was 137-108 in 2021 which was reduced to 116-93 this year. Similarly, the qualifying marks range for General/EWS PwD candidates this year was 116-105 as against 137-122 in 2021. This year the qualifying marks range for OBC, SC/ST Divyangjan candidates was 104-93. Around 95 percent of attendance was recorded in the entrance test held on July 17 at 3,570 different centers in 497 cities across the country and 14 cities outside India.
