How 44 are NEET UG toppers because of a wrong answer — and wrong textbook

Since 2019, there haven’t been more than three toppers in any year of NEET UG, which is the single gateway for admission to all MBBS programs in the country. In 2019 and 2020, there was one topper each. There were three toppers in 2021, one in 2022, and two last year.

However, this year, a multiple-choice Physics question on atoms opened the floodgates for high scores.

The question was based on two statements. The first said: “Atoms are electrically neutral as they contain equal numbers of positive and negative charges.” The second statement said: “Atoms of each element are stable and emit their characteristic spectrum.”

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Candidates were asked to choose the “most appropriate answer” from four options:

One: First is correct but second is incorrect; Two: first is incorrect but second is correct; Three: both first and second statements are correct; Four: both statements are incorrect.

The correct answer is Option 1 since the first statement is correct and the second is not since atoms of radioactive elements are not stable.

On May 29, NTA released its provisional answer key which showed that Option 1 is correct.

However, more than 10,000 candidates challenged the answer key on the grounds that an old version of the Class 12 NCERT textbook inaccurately states, “Atoms of each element are stable.” The correct answer is that atoms of “most” elements are stable, as stated in the new version of the NCERT Chemistry textbook.

“Since we strongly recommend all aspirants study only from NCERT textbooks for their NEET preparation, we decided to give credit to all those candidates who marked the third option (of the multiple-choice question) as the answer. The third option stated that both statements 1 and 2 are correct,” said an NTA official.

This decision saw 44 candidates have their scores boosted from 715 to a perfect 720, making them among the unprecedented number of NEET-UG toppers this year.

“In India, for ages, older siblings have been passing on their books to their younger siblings, and there is no harm in it; we have all done it. The NTA cannot ask students to specially buy new books too as it may not be viable for everyone. So, we will hold a meeting and establish proper protocols for such a situation,” another NTA official said when asked why the agency decided to award grace marks for an incorrect answer.

NTA hasn’t flagged the discrepancy between the old and new version of the Class 12 textbook to NCERT.  “We will notify the NCERT now for future reference, but nothing can be done by NCERT for this year’s NEET exam,” the senior official added.

“However, the NTA official also said that while 67 students have been given first rank, it doesn’t mean all 67 will get into AIIMS. We have a tie-breaker policy. Each student who secured AIR 1 will see their actual position on the merit list calculated as per our tie-breaker policy. Each student’s score card mentions that detail,” the official explained.

When asked if this was the only reason behind a record number of NEET UG toppers this year, the officer clarified that while this played a major role, the “fact that the paper was comparatively easier this year and there was a huge increase in the number of registrations were also a factor.”

This year, a record 23.81 lakh students registered for NEET UG, which is an increase from last year’s 20.87 lakh registrations. As per data shared by NTA, a total of 9.96 lakh boys and 13.32 lakh girls and 17 transgender candidates appeared for the exam.

Of the 67 candidates with a perfect 720 score, the majority are from Rajasthan (11), followed by Tamil Nadu (8), Maharashtra (7) and then four each from Andhra Pradesh and Bihar.