NATA 2018: Candidates allege unexpectedly low marks in Drawing
New Delhi, June 6: Several candidates cried injustice on Wednesday when the Council of Architecture (COA) published results for the National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA) without re-evaluating the earlier result, as it had promised, after protests from examinees against unexpectedly low marks.
As the results were published on Wednesday evening, many students and parents were dismayed at finding that scores for the 'Drawing' paper were not changed as promised.
Earlier, when the results were published for the NATA on June 4, many candidates had complained of getting "unexpectedly" low marks. Attributing the error to a technical glitch, the COA had corrected the marks for the 'Aptitude' test, while asking the candidates, in a message on Monday, to disregard the scores for Drawing and requested them to wait for an updated result on June 6 (Wednesday).
However on Wednesday afternoon, the council sent another communication to the candidates informing them that no re-evaluation will be done for the Drawing paper.
"On direction by the competent authority, it is informed that no review/re-evaluation will be available for the drawing test (Part B)," tcsinfo hub, the technical vendor hired by COA for publishing results, said in an email.
Far from satisfied, candidates were left with no choice but to wonder at allegedly unfair marks they scored in the subject.
"Although I scored 37 in drawing, I was expecting somewhere in the 50s. I got good marks in JEE architecture paper also. There are many others who have been accorded marks in 20s, despite otherwise doing well in the JEE," Mansi Chandwani, a student who took the exam, told IANS.
She added that she has even heard of a student who scored a zero in the paper.
The parent of another candidate called it an "injustice" and said he, along with others, will move to the COA office in the morning to protest there.
"The main issue is that firstly there were so many issues related to technical glitches with the aptitude test results on Monday. They had to change the results thrice before getting it right. And now with the drawing paper, the scores are too low to be believable," said the parent of a candidate who scored below the passing threshold, failing to make the cut.
Students had also found a mistake in the publishing of year of the examination also, which was published as 2019, instead of 2018, and was corrected in the result published on Wednesday.
The annual exam for the architecture aspirants is conducted in two components: an online test for Mathematics and General Aptitude for 120 marks, and another a Drawing test for 80 marks. Both the tests were done on April 29.
Contacted by IANS, COA Vice President Rajeev Garg said there was no issue with the marks and any glitches which were there have been rectified.
"The complaints which we received (after Monday results) have been rectified. The problem was of mismatching. The examiners' scores were not matching with the score cards published. .. as for the low scores for drawing, you and I cannot decide how much one should get. If somebody has got a zero, we will look into it," he said.
A total of 44,265 candidates had appeared for the exam out of which 30,560 qualified.
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Eight persons killed 17 injured in knife attack in China
Beijing, Nov 16: Eight persons were killed and 17 injured in a knife attack at a vocational school in east China's Jiangsu Province on Saturday, local police officials said.
The attack took place at around 6:30 pm at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology in Yixing City.
The 21-year-old suspect, surnamed Xu, was caught at the scene and he confessed to his crime, according to a statement released by the public security bureau of Yixing, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
According to the police, Xu, a graduate of the school this year, returned to the school to vent his anger for not receiving his graduation certificate due to failing exams and for dissatisfaction with his internship pay.
Rescue efforts are underway and police are further investigating the case, the report said.
This is the second attack on civilians this week.
On November 12, thirty-five people were killed and 43 injured when a man ploughed his car into a crowd of people at a sports centre in Zhuhai city.
Police who detained a man called Fan said his actions stemmed from his dissatisfaction with the property division outcome of his divorce.
Expressing concern over the incident, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged all-out efforts to treat the injured.
Car ramming incidents, besides knife attacks on civilians, have been taking place periodically in China in recent months. The incidents are routinely blamed on disgruntled elements by security officials.
