Separate exams will be held for students infected by COVID-19, says Minister
Vijayawada, August 19, 2021: The Andhra Pradesh Engineering, Agriculture and Pharmacy Common Entrance Tests (EAPCET)- 2021 will be be conducted in the State from August 19 (Thursday). Education Minister Adimulapu Suresh on Tuesday said the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University- Kakinada (JNTU-K) will conduct the test on behalf of the Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE). The EAPCET this year will be a Computer Based Test (CBT).
The examination for the engineering stream would be conducted on August 19, 20, 23, 24 and 25, while the agriculture and pharmacy stream students will write the test on September 3, 6 and 7.
The Minister said in view of the infrastructure requirements and COVID-19 pandemic, the test would be held in 16 sessions—10 for engineering stream and six for agriculture and pharmacy streams.
Due to cancellation of the Intermediate examinations, the authorities have decided to give 100 % weightage to EAPCET marks for admissions into professional courses this year.
Of the 2,59,564 candidates who registered for the EAPCET, 1,75,796 are from the engineering stream, 83,051 from agriculture and 717 candidates will write both engineering and agriculture test. The exam will be conducted in 120 centres in 14 zones in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The Minister made it clear that students infected with the virus would not be allowed to write the test. A separate examination session would be held for such students from all the three streams after their recovery, he said.
The question paper would comprise 160 multiple choice questions in bilingual (English and Telugu) languages and measures are being taken to prevent malpractice. The council has uploaded to its official website trial tests to create awareness on the CBT according to the reports published in thehindu.com.
Around 1,000 invigilators, 200 observers and special observers and 120 chief superintendents would be deployed for every session of the exam.The preliminary key for the engineering stream would be released on August 25 and the same for agriculture and pharmacy streams will be released on September 7. Students would be given the opportunity to raise objections and subject-wise. “Key Objections Verification Committee” had been constituted to verify the objections raised by students.
Mr. Suresh said the test would be based on same syllabus and same pattern but the question papers would be different for each session. “Because of this, candidates may compare the question papers to see the variation in difficulty levels of question paper of the same subject,” he said, explaining that a “normalisation process” would be adopted to eliminate such variations. Through this process, the marks in the easy session may be reduced marginally and marks in the difficult session may be increased, he said.
