NEET aspirants in Chennai rush back from vacation & head straight to coaching for re-exam prep

Chennai: Avani Tripathi of Maharishi Vidya Mandir Senior Secondary School at Chetpet was on vacation in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, when she came to know that the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET) was cancelled. She booked a ticket back to Chennai to take up coaching for the NEET re-exam, which is expected to be held in the next few weeks.Many students like her were on vacation after the May 3 NEET exam, taking a much-deserved break after undertaking gruelling coaching for about a year. Now, they all have to abort their plans and switch on for the re-exam within a very short time. Coaching institutions are planning to revise the portions and conduct mock test series after the National Testing Agency (NTA) announced the cancellation of the exam on Tuesday.V Mary Vanessa, a student from Alwin Memorial Public School at Tambaram, said her coaching institute wanted to restart NEET coaching from Friday. "It's very hard to switch from a holiday mood to studying again. I want to concentrate on physics questions. The coaching centre wants to give mock tests once in two days to prepare us. They aren't charging any extra amount for this," she said. Some students plan to do self-study and focus on subjects they struggled with in the exam.Trainers said tuning the students back into exam mode will be a challenge. "Many students were on vacation, so the major challenge will be to keep them motivated. It is a lengthy coaching process. The coaching will be focused on tests," said Sourav Mondal, academic head of FIITJEE Global School. "If the retest is conducted within a month, it would be fine. If it is delayed more than that, college admissions will also be affected," he added."The coaching for the re-exam will need at least three weeks. We are asking our students to attend offline classes, and have started contacting them to bring them to their home locations," said Santosh Singh, academic head (Tamil Nadu and Puducherry), Allen Career Institute in Chennai.Coaching institutes are also planning to hold online classes for students who want to take up NEET coaching.