As a student currently studying in IIT kgp and having cleared jee 2006 all i can say this is that this exercise in changing the pattern is completely pointless. The new pattern we encountered in april was not stress reducing it increased it! The paper was acknowledged to be one of the more difficult jee papers in recent years. Stress comes not from the level of difficulty but the competition in jee. And "reduced dependency on coaching centres " is not going to happen. Bansal had 900+ selections this year. The coaching centres are here to stay whether we like it or not.
Until the entire system is re-tooled, involving pratical tests to judge the candidate's true potential for a career in engineering, as well as tests on linguistic ability, IQ, GK and personal vision, nothing significant will be achieved by window-dressing from time to time: the coaching classes will tweak the system to their advantage soon enough, and the IITs will keep admitting and churning out greedy mediocrities with bloated egos by the thousands, who will rarely found Infosys-style corporations or invent miraculous gadgets and processes to change the world.They have by and large always been good only for doing mid-level jobs for MNCs or escaping into B-schools or running away to the US, unless they can land jobs in the IAS. When will we wake up and look the nasty truth in the face?
Nothing can be better than relesing the stress of not only students but of parents also. If this pattern will help to get the right candidates and potential candidate with midddle and lower class family ,I feel its impact on society will be far greater. I wish all the best for real contenders.
these changes were certainly unexpected.I myself am preparing for JEE 08' But in the end of the day, i knw it doesnt matter whether the time limit has been reduced by 20% or the stress level are going to be reduced etc etc.. If WE WORK HARD ENOUGH and develop such skills to be liable to study in IIT, we'll make it otherwise we dont . As simple as that.
If reducing stress on candidates is the aim of the admission/examination board, then they can simply have potluck kind of system which will definitely reduce the stress on students. The problem is a clear-cut case of consumer-producer type. When production is less and consumption is more, competition is the answer. Instead of looking into ways of increasing production(IIT's) the board is spending its energy somewhere else.
7 years back, while preparing for IIT-JEE, I felt the best ever paper for the JEE entrance was in 93. That paper tested understanding of concepts, analytical ability, speed and most important patience. Exams like that differentiate the scientists from the engineers. The current pattern is good if you want to churn out scores of software engineers but, for research I guess, the 90's exam papers were much better. India lacks in pure sciences and this pattern is not helping the situation in any way.
Change is good as it will require the student to focus on fundsmental and will get the best brain and not the best coached. There is ray of IIT in averge middle class boy who at present despite talent is beaten by best coached.
I am not sure what kind of comprehensive ability they are testing in new pattern. But if it is like reading comprehensionwe are doomed. Comprehensive ability test is for business people. Who have to go thru 500 pages documents and presentation in a day and make quick instant decision. More than comprehensive test, that is test of English language. In most of the presentation and papers in corporate world we find 90% junk/filler material, so you can utilize your power of language in sorting thru those junks.
Techie people talk less and comprehend more. JEE problem standard were mostly either you get it or not. You think 5 min or 50 min, may make less difference.
Only way to solve those problems were to improve your understanding and fundamental slowly and prepare.
Other than Microsoft books. (which I never read) technical content are crisp and clear. Compare CJ Date and one of Microsoft manual you will know what I am talking about. Now if you want to test comprehensive ability using Microsoft manual. Only God can help you!
Why do we want to screw things which are working?
All these changes will only prepare India towards serving as call center (where you can comprehend what crap a foreigner is talking and serve him better) than making it research hub of world.
Influence of coaching classes was mostly hyped-up. JEE questions were tough and you need enough hard work to understand the fundamentals and crack it. And if coaching classes are preparing thru hard work and tough schedules. What is wrong? Is it jealousy that coaching classes teachers are getting paid high? Not sure what we are trying to fix?
What was wrong with JEE? It filtered top quality, top talent. JEE is nothing but filter IIT was not great in itself because of great courses etc (other than comp/elect courses). you put bunch of talented people under same roofthey make difference. JEE use to filter and put talent at one place.
Did we see any degradation in quality of students entering thru JEE? Nowdays people are slogging little more some muggoos may also be inbut thats cool reward for hard work. And you can not get in JEE just by mugging so aptitude, hard work...everything used to play role in their proportion.
There is no way coaching class can teach you short cut to crack fundamental questions. In-fact coaching classes used to boost the confidence. Most of the time, scoring in coaching class tests used to be less than 50% still percentile wise, we used to be in top 95+%. That indicated you can still make in JEE even by scoring 30-40% in test.
