Hyderabad: Paper 2 of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced is likely to be the deal-breaker this year, as many students who appeared for the exam found it lengthy and difficult.Paper 1, meanwhile, was considered moderately difficult, with physics being the toughest section, followed by chemistry and mathematics. In Paper 2 as well, physics was regarded as the most difficult among the three subjects.“The afternoon session was very lengthy. I felt it was tougher than the papers from the last two years. I had to leave one question each in Paper 1 and Paper 2 because the paper was lengthy and I ran out of time. In Paper 2, both physics and chemistry were difficult,” said Kata Himakar, who secured a 99.999 percentile in JEE Main.Another student, Vivan Sharad Maheshwari, who secured a 100 percentile in JEE Main, also said the paper was lengthy. “It was lengthy, but I enjoyed answering it. I too felt Paper 2 was much harder than Paper 1. I am happy with my overall performance,” he said. Academicians, meanwhile, said that students scoring around 260 out of 360 should be able to secure a place among the top 100 ranks this year.“Last year, students who scored over 270 made it to the top 100. This year, the cut-off is likely to come down. In both sessions, physics was tough. I feel the performance in Paper 2 will determine this year’s toppers,” said M Umasankar, All India IIT coordinator, Sri Chaitanya Group.He added that each subject — physics, chemistry, and mathematics — had 16 questions in both sessions. “In Paper 1, two questions in chemistry were tricky, but there were no ambiguous questions in any of the three subjects,” he said.Similarly, P Prameela, academic head of Narayana Group, said even toppers would have left three to four questions unanswered. “The paper was very lengthy. We can say that Paper 2 was of a similar standard to the 2022 question paper, while Paper 1 was similar to the 2024 paper. Anyone scoring above 260 should comfortably make it to the top 100,” she said.
