In JEE’s new final key, test agency revises answers to 2 questions

New Delhi: The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Friday revised answers to two questions in its newly published final answer key for paper 1 (Bachelor of Engineering/Bachelor of Technology) of the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) main session 2. However, two physics questions – one in domestic centres and one in international centres – remained dropped as it was in the first final answer keys, which was removed barely an hour after uploading it on its official website on Thursday night.

For question ID 347577574 in physics, NTA initially published 125 as the answer, but candidates argued for 5, and now the final answer has been revised to 5. Similarly, for question ID 603421799, the answer key has been updated to 0. Question ID 347577562 in domestics and 347577939 in international were dropped.

In its October 28, 2024 bulletin, NTA said that it would drop any incorrect questions due to human or technical error, awarding four marks to all candidates regardless of attempt. Earlier, NTA dropped 12 questions in JEE main 2025 session 1 paper 1 and six questions in session 1 and four questions in session 2 for paper 1 of JEE Main 2024.

The analysis by coaching centres suggests that there are still discrepancies in the latest answer keys, with NTA correcting a few questions in the revised final answer keys from first final answer keys and still having wrong answers for few questions.

“NTA conducted the JEE main session 2 in 10 shifts for paper 1, which had 675 questions from mathematics, physics and chemistry subjects. Our analysis shows that in the revised final answer key released on Friday, the answers of 11 questions have also been changed compared to the provisional answer keys, including 6 in physics, 3 in mathematics and 2 in chemistry. Of the 11 questions, the answers of a maximum of 5 questions were changed for shifts on April 3, including 4 questions in the morning and one question in the evening shift,” Allen Career Institute’s director Dr Brajesh Maheshwari said.

The agency, which has been roiled by controversies around paper leaks ever since the conduct of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) 2024, is now facing complaints of errors in provisional and the final answer keys JEE Main 2025 exam, one of India’s most crucial engineering entrance tests.

The NTA conducted the paper 1 exam of JEE main session 2 from April 2 to 8 and released the provisional answer key on April 11. The first final answer key was published late Thursday night but was taken down within an hour without any explanation by NTA. A revised final answer key was then released around 3 PM on Friday, with results expected by Saturday.

Anup Gupta, founder of online coaching platform MathonGo in his analysis of answer keys found that there are no changes in the provisional and final answer keys in shift 2 of April 2. However, there are changes in other shifts, he said.

“In the April 2 morning shift, the answer to a Maths question was changed from 4997 (provisional key) to 2477 in the first final answer key, and this was retained in the revised final key. On April 3 (morning shift), a Physics question was dropped, awarding all students four bonus marks. For another Physics question on magnetic fields, the answer changed from 1 (provisional) to 5 in the first final key, then reverted to 1 in the revised version. A Physics question on catalysts and equilibrium was corrected in the first final key and retained. Another answer to a question on the ammeter was changed from 125 to 5 in the revised final key,” he said.

Earlier, candidates also complained that their JEE main session 2 response sheet displayed wrong answers and was blank for some.

“My daughter attempted 71 questions out of 75 but none of them are marked in the response sheet that we saw on April 11 even though she revisited all the questions that she attempted and ticked the correct answers. It is unfortunate,” said a parent whose ward sat for the exam.

Top 2,50,000 successful JEE main candidates will be eligible for JEE (advanced), which is scheduled to be conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) Kanpur on May 18 for admission to engineering courses at 23 IITs.

NTA did not respond to HT’s queries seeking a response to the allegations.