In the cut-throat competition for postgraduate medical entrance, where a single question can change the fate of a PG aspirant, the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) in Maharashtra has committed 43 mistakes in Common Entrance Test(CET) question paper for MD/MS admissions. The examination held on January 4, grabbed an attendance of 9,815 students, competing for 792 seats in Maharashtra. It will have to give away 26 marks to whoever attended the exam and an extra 17 marks to those who opted for any of the two correct answers for particular questions.
As part of the protocol, DMER asked the students to file any discrepancies following the exam and it received a shocking number of 12,535 objections on 256 questions where the whole paper consists of 300 questions. Some students appealed to Bombay High court, fearing that their rank will shoot up and fail to grab the seat of their choice. The next hearing of the case is to be held on March 27. A third party agency was hired in mid-January by DMER to check the question paper. A notification published in DMER website on 30 January stated that only 13 questions are defective.
According to the article published in DNA, Dr Mansingh Pawar, competent authority of CET, DMER agreed that there were mistakes and assured of taking precautions in the future. In an expert opinion to the same article, Dr Arun Bal, health activist and senior surgeon is seen saying, “Have we heard about mistakes in IIT common entrance exams? Why is it happening only with DMER’s CET? They are not taking their job seriously. There are several incidents when students have lost their seats for just one mark.”

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