Finance
Last year, 17 applicants received a perfect score of 720 in updated NEET-UG results, but this year’s top score was 686, with no candidate receiving a full 720.
This year’s results featured a single winner, Mahesh Kumar of Rajasthan, who achieved a percentile of 99.9999547. According to the NEET-UG results released on Saturday by the National Testing Agency (NTA), Utkarsh Awadhiya of Madhya Pradesh came in second with a percentile of 99.9999095. In May, the undergraduate medical admission exam was administered under close supervision.
With the top score being lower than the previous years, the NEET-UG cut-off has dropped this year. The cut-off for the general category was a marks range of 686-144, compared to 720-162 last year, and 720-137 in 2023.
The highest score this year is also the lowest it has been since 2019, when the NTA began conducting NEET-UG. While the top scorers received a complete 720 in the previous two years, as well as in 2020 and 2021, the maximum score achieved by a candidate in 2022 was 715, up from 701 in 2019.
This year, 73 contestants received scores ranging from 651 to 686. Unlike prior years, the NTA did not publicize the top 50 candidates’ scores this year.
Last year, the initial results that the NTA declared in June had a set of 67 candidates who secured a full score of 720.
This reduced to 61 after 1,563 students were retested and given grace marks for time lost during the exam.
Of the 67 applicants who scored 720 in the June 2018 results, 44 received a full score since they answered a Physics question incorrectly and received grace marks because the answer they marked was based on an inaccurate reference in an old class 12 NCERT science textbook. The results were then altered after the Supreme Court directed the NTA to consider only one of the possibilities as the right response.
This year, a total of 22.09 lakh candidates appeared for the exam, down from 23.33 lakh last year. Of them, 12.37 lakh candidates qualified. More than half of those who appeared for the exam were female candidates, while 58% or 7.22 lakh candidates who qualified were female. Among the States, the highest number of candidates who qualified were from Uttar Pradesh (1,70,684), followed by Maharashtra (1,25,727), Rajasthan (1,19,865), Karnataka (83,582) and Bihar (80,954).
Rajasthan and Delhi had four applicants apiece in the top 20. Following a paper leak last year, the Centre, States, and district administrations closely monitored the conduct of NEET-UG this year, in accordance with the recommendations of a committee formed by the Ministry of Education last year to suggest measures for conducting such public exams securely.
Source: IE
