Engg cut-off may drop by up to 4 marks in Tamil Nadu

Chennai: Experts have predicted a drop by two to four marks in the cut-off for engineering admissions in top colleges this year compared to last year. They cite the huge dip in the number of students who scored centums in maths, physics, chemistry subjects in the Tamil Nadu higher secondary examination. The cut-off marks for veterinary, agriculture and fisheries courses are also expected to drop by one to four marks.While the number of students who got full marks in physics dropped from 1,125 last year to 105 this year, the numbers fell from 3,022 to 732 for maths, and in chemistry it came down from 3,181 to 632. "With CBSE students also finding the physics paper tough this year, the cut-off may drop by two to four marks this year compared to last year," career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi said. For example, a student with 193 cut-off marks may get admission in the same college and course as a student who scored 195 or 196 marks last year. Meanwhile, the number of students who got full marks in biology subjects also witnessed a slight dip— from 827 to 784. In botany, only 39 students were able to score full marks compared to 269 last year, and in zoology, it came down from 36 to 18."The cut-off for veterinary and fisheries courses may come down by one to three marks while the BSc agriculture course cut-off may come down by two to four marks," career consultant R Ashwin said. Candidates have to check the previous year's cut-off for engineering released on TNEA's official website before filling the choices, the experts said. Officials from the directorate of govt exams said the Class 12 question papers included higher order thinking questions in each section, which consequently brought down the number of centums this year."Chemistry question paper didn't have many repeat questions. Application-oriented questions could also be the reason for the lesser number of centums this year," said S Rathna Kumar, a chemistry teacher.Physics paper also had some tricky questions in the multiple-choice questions section. "The question paper was easy. However, two one-mark questions were tricky, and only few students got them correct," said Punitha, a physics teacher.