EAMCET: every minute counts

Updated on: Monday, May 24, 2010

A minute may be insignificant in a student's life in normal circumstances. But a one minute delay may rob EAMCET aspirants of all their two years of hard work and the dreams nurtured since childhood.

The EAMCET authorities have made it very clear that students will not be allowed into the examination hall even if they are late by a minute. Despite warnings some students still come late. But this year officials have ensured that examination is conducted on Sunday so that traffic jams will not be a reason for the delay. “Moreover, SMS is being sent to all the candidates reminding about the one-minute delay factor,” says N.V. Ramana Rao, Convenor, EAMCET-2010. He says APSRTC has been requested to provide special services. Moreover, private engineering colleges are also providing free bus service in several centres.

Students will be allowed into the examination hall 45 minutes before the conduct of the test unlike 30 minutes last year. This is to give more time for students to relax in the exam hall and also make them rush to the centres early. Students will also get their examination centre details along with phone numbers on their mobiles so that they can locate the centre easily. “It is advisable for all candidates to call and find out exact location of the centre a day before,” Prof. Rao says.

Important aspects

Listing out some important aspects to be kept in mind, Prof. Rao says students should be careful while filling up the Optical Marks Reader (OMR) sheet. The most common mistake noticed by officials is the incorrect entry and wrong marking in the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) sheet. The problems vary from wrongly marked code number to the faulty entry of the booklet number.

This time the OMR sheets will be student specific. It means the name of the candidate, hall-ticket number and the photograph will be printed on the sheet itself. So they have to make sure that their OMR sheet is given to them. Prof. Rao says it is an important document and students should not write any irrelevant matter on it or else it will not be valued.

An important change this time is that the question paper booklet will be given to students. So a separate Question Paper Booklet Data Card will be given where candidates have to fill booklet code and its serial number. “Both OMR and Data Card have to be filled carefully and given back to the invigilator or else students will be liable for criminal cases,” he says. At the same time, Hall-tickets should be preserved till the admission time. He says if students find any mistakes in their name or father's name or other details they can make changes in the nominal rolls available with the invigilator.

Once the booklet is given, Prof. Rao says students have to check the booklet whether it contains all the 64 pages and the 160 questions. Any defective booklet should be returned immediately and a new booklet should be taken. “Don't start writing in a hurry. Check these key aspects before attempting questions.”

The right pencil

Students may be brilliant but use of non-HB pencils will surely land them in trouble. Use of HB pencils is a must, as the computer scanner will only read the dark circles that come better with HB pencils.

Use of H or 2H pencils may put a hard impression on the sheet, but the scanner does not detect the light shade.

Each OMR sheet is scanned twice with different levels of darkness level set for the two scanners.

“This is to detect the light shade on the OMR sheet, but sometimes even that doesn't serve the purpose,” says Prof. Rao, advising students to use only HB pencils and darken the circle as much as they can. Another problem is students don't erase the darkened circles totally while preferring to change the answer. This problem also leads to mistakes in scanning.

Those who have not received the hall-tickets so far can download them from www.apeamcet.org and if they can't download duplicate hall-tickets can be taken from the concerned Centres on May 28 and 29 on submission of a photograph and a fee of Rs. 20.

EAMCET: every minute counts

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