After the Gujarat University (GU) conducted the entrance exams for the courses of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and Master of Philosophy (MPhil), the varsity uploaded the answer keys online on its official website. The benefit of doing the same is that students can verify their performance and the admission process becomes error-free. However, GU aspirants this time were surprised after the answer keys for the PhD and MPhil entrances were made available on August 6. 50 per cent of the answer options were the same for both the courses. After checking the answers, the confounded students found that the correct answer for all the 50 questions for PhD in Gujrati was set as option A, while for 50 questions in MPhil, the right option was C. Gujarat University Reduces Exam Duration to 30 Minutes. 

For both the courses, students will have to answer 100 questions, each carrying one mark. In the entrance exam, the candidates answer 50 questions about English, reasoning, logic and math and 50 questions related to a selected subject. The officials in response said that move was to trick the students. Kirtida Shah, Head of the Gujrati Department told TOI, “We had purposely decided to have such a similar pattern. Only brilliant students will be able to judge it right. Usually children guess when they do not know the answer and hence we will be able to assess if the students have guessed the answer or not.”

But student leaders said that it might end up benefiting only a section of candidates. Parthiv Raj Kathwadia, a student leader, alleged that the “decision to fix only one option as the correct answer for all questions will aid a few to sail through.”

The results were announced on August 5 on the Gujarat University website. According to GU, a total of 739 students appeared for 190 MPhil seats, out of which only 46 successfully cleared the exam. Nine students did not have to appear in the exam as they qualified the national test. On the other hand, for PhD 1,881 candidates sat for the entrance for 600 seats, but only 203 qualified. 442 students were exempted from the exam as they have completed their MPhil course. The selected students will be invited for group discussion and personal interviews for the final selection process.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 07, 2018 10:00 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).