Issues with a two stage examination and with Descriptive Tests

1. This is workable only if a separate long question paper is set for JEE
AND Board marks is used as a cut-off. If Board marks are to be used as a
weighting factor in any way, there will be no time for a second
examination. Now, Board marks have been in use as a cut-off since 2006
(?). They are too low. So we have to increase them sufficiently. If they
are very high, then the scheme will be worse than the compromise formula,
because in the latter, a student has a chance to make up his Board losses
in the Mains. IN IITD's scheme there is no chance if Board results are
bad. With so much being said about the Board results not being fair, this
may not be a good solution. With a high cut-off, there is the worry about
SC/ST and OBC cut-offs. What if enough candidates do not qualify? Lastly,
the number of disqualifications may go up (from next to nothing now) and
disappointments and court cases may increase. So the scheme is workable
only if the Mains is held by CBSE (to take the burden off us), Board marks
are used as a cutoff which is at a very similar level to what we have now,
and then there is a second test. This may be a good idea, but this is very
far from the proposal of the Council. It is in effect a total rejection of
the Council proposal.
2. Many faculty are worried about RTI and the answer papers of long
questions getting displayed on web pages and paper examiners being subject
to ridicule publicly and to court cases. This view is not only of the IIT
Council.

3. Getting faculty to do the corrections has been a major headache of the 

JEE system when descriptive questions were there in JEE. Faculty of local 

colleges used to be brought in as examiners in IIT Kanpur during the 'eighties

when I was a faculty there. Most IIT faculty go out during summer. It is to

be remembered that corrections are done by faculty from Physics, Chemistry and

Mathematics (with a few exceptions). Faculty from CSE, EE, ME etc are mostly not

involved in paper corrections and so they may not be aware of the difficulties

 the IITs have faced, and are likely to face in future if descriptive tests.