Students question NTA’s CUET-UG answer keys

NEW DELHI: After a significant delay, the National Testing Agency (NTA) finally released the answer keys for the Common University Entrance Test-Undergraduate on Sunday prior to the announcement of the exam results. Shortly after, students and teachers claimed they had noticed "inaccuracies” in the answer key. Expressing concern that such inaccuracies could negatively impact their results, students urged NTA to rectify them.
Abhinay Tiwari, a student of Gyan Mandir Public School, said he was stressed about the delay in the CUET answer key but now that they are out, his anxiety has only increased. “In my English exam, the answer keys show wrong answers for the comprehension passage as well as jumbled sentences,” the youngster protested. “I had marked the right answers, but the answer key shows wrong answers. I first thought I might have made mistakes, but after checking with my teachers and the answers online, it turns out the CUET key itself is wrong.” He added that he noticed irregularities on his economics paper answer key too.
Sarthak Gupta of Faith Academy also found “at least errors in four answers” in the English paper. “Several other students have alleged similar problems in their English, mathematics and sociology answer key,” he claimed.
TOI asked city coaching centres that had prepared examinees for the CUET exams to learn if many more students had similar complaints. Karan, who is a teacher in KeyCampus, said, “Ever since the answer keys have been released, many of my students have pointed out discrepancies in the answer key. And these are not just one or two errors, but there are errors in the key in almost all subjects.”
Karan added, “The toppers in my batch have come with 10-15 wrong answers in the key. We matched their answers with NCERT answers too and it shows the answer keys are wrong.”
A teacher from Unimonks, which prepares students for CUET, said most complaints about discrepancies are with regard to sociology in the humanities stream, accounts in commerce and maths in science. Dr Arvind said, “Many students claim that they want to challenge the answer key, but contesting each answer will cost Rs 200, and not all students can afford to do that for all their papers. This is why it is imperative that NTA should look into these grievances and rectify the answer keys.” As per NTA regulations, students can challenge the provisional answer key at a cost of Rs 200 per question until July 9.
Following allegations of wrong answers, on Sunday, NTA issued a notification saying that challenges made by the candidates would be verified by a panel of subject experts. The testing agency had said the CUET-UG result would be published on June 30, but it is likely to be released now on July 10.
NTA is already in a row over alleged irregularities and paper leaks in two of India’s largest competitive entrance examinations: the National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test for admissions to undergraduate medical courses and the University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test for the post of assistant professor in universities and colleges.