IIT-JEE (Indian Institute of Technology- Joint Entrance Exam)

The Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination (popularly known as IIT-JEE or just JEE) is an annual college entrance examination in India. A total of fifteen colleges use JEE as a sole criterion for admission to their undergraduate programs. The fifteen colleges include the seven old and six new (2008) Indian Institutes of Technology, IT-BHU Varanasi, and ISM Dhanbad. Starting in 2007, newly established institutions such as Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) at Kolkata, Pune, Mohali, Bhopal & Thiruvananthapuram, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Indian Institute of Maritime Studies, Mumbai and Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology (RGIPT), Raebarely Uttar Pradesh are also admitting students through the JEE (Extended Merit List). The exam is conducted by the various IITs by a policy of rotation. It is one of the toughest engineering entrance exams in the world with a success rate of around 1 in 45. Candidates who qualify in the IIT-JEE can apply for admission to the BArch (Bachelor of Architecture), BDes (Bachelor of Design), BTech (Bachelor of Technology), Dual Degree (Integrated Bachelor of Technology and Masters of Technology) and Integrated MSc (Master of Sciences) courses in the various institutes. Achieving entrance into an IIT is often considered the pinnacle of achievement for a student of the sciences, and the IITs/IT-BHU/ISM attract most of the brightest students of the nation.

Of the 311,258 candidates who appeared in the examination conducted on April 13, 2008, 8,652 candidates have been declared qualified to seek admission, giving a selectivity of 1 in 36 overall, 1 in 45 for the 6,872 seats in IITs,IT-BHU and ISM and 1 in 56 for the IITs only. Preliminary estimates indicate that about 375,000 candidates will be taking JEE 2009.


Current examination format
IITJEE-2009 is scheduled to be held on April 12, 2009. JEE-2008 was conducted on April 13, 2008 retaining the same pattern as JEE-2007 containing Paper-I & Paper-II (JEE-2007 had two papers of three hours duration each). The two papers each contained maths, physics and chemistry sections (in previous years, there were separate maths, physics and chemistry papers, each of two hours' duration). The syllabus of the examination is based on topics covered by the CBSE Board Examination (AISSCE) and the ISC Board Examination , though all topics of the AISSCE and the ISC are not included in the JEE syllabus. The pattern of questions in JEE is deliberately variable so as to minimize the chance of students getting selected by cramming up the probable questions. Currently, the examination has objective type question paper for all the subjects and uses machine readable Optical mark recognition answer sheets.

Given the importance attached to the JEE by students all over India, the IITs follow a rigorous procedure when conducting it every year. The exam is set by the JEE Committee (consisting of a group of faculty members drawn from the admitting colleges) under the tightest security. Multiple sets of question papers are framed and the set that is to actually be used on the day of the exam is known to only about five individuals. In the past, the JEE has been noted for originality in its questions.


History
The JEE has evolved considerably from its initial pattern approximately 52 years back. Initially, there were 4 subjects in JEE, the English language paper being the additional subject. During the period from 2000 to 2005, the JEE also had a screening test in addition to the JEE main examination in order to reduce the load on the JEE main examination by screening only about 20,000 top candidates. In 1997, the JEE was conducted twice after the question paper was leaked in some centres.

In September 2005, an analysis group comprising of directors of all the IITs announced major reforms in JEE, implemented from 2006 onwards. The new test consists of a single objective test, replacing the earlier two-test system. The candidates belonging to the general category must secure a minimum of 60% marks in aggregate in the qualifying examination of the XIIth standard organized by various educational boards of India. Candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Physically Disabled (PD) categories must secure a minimum of 55% in aggregate in the Qualifying Examination.The introduction of only one stage objective exam instead of two stages and a subjective one has led to decline in quality of students who are selected[citation needed]. This can be well understood by the fact that over one hundred students failed in their Ist year B.Tech exams at IIT Kanpur alone.

In 2008, the director and the dean of IIT Madras called for revamping JEE, saying that the coaching institutes were "enabling many among the less-than-best students to crack the test and keeping girls from qualifying." They expressed concern that the present system did not allow for the 12 years of schooling to have a bearing on admissions into IITs.

According to the data released by the organizing committee of IIT-JEE, the children of medical professionals had the highest success rate in the IIT-JEE (for the years 2006, 2007 and 2008). They were followed by the children of engineers. The maximum number of students taking IIT-JEE are the children of government employees, but they had a much lower success rate.

Seats
The number of students taking this examination has increased substantially each year with the JEE-2008 registering about 311,258 candidates. The availability of seats in recent years is as given in table below:

Institute Intake (2003) Intake (2006) Intake (2007) Intake (2008)
IIT Bombay 554 574 574 648
IIT Delhi 552 553 553 626
IIT Guwahati 350 365 365 435
IIT Kanpur 456 555 541 608
IIT Kharagpur 659 895 874 988
IIT Madras 554 520 540 612
IIT Roorkee 546 616 746 884
New IIT's opened in 2008
IIT Bhubaneshwar 120
IIT Gandhinagar 120
IIT Hyderabad 120
IIT Patna 120
IIT Punjab 120
IIT Rajasthan 120
Total (IIT's) 3571 4078 4193 5521
IT-BHU (Varanasi) 568 708 686 766
ISM Dhanbad 444 658 658 705
TOTAL 4583 5444 5537 6992

The age limit for appearing in IIT-JEE is 25 years. For candidates belonging to SC, ST and PD categories, the relaxed age limit is 30 years. Also, starting 2007, a candidate can take the JEE two times at the most. This has been done mainly to reduce stress on students and discourage the concept of "cram schools" — where students are made to memorize all types of possible exam questions. Furthermore, from 2007 on, students who are selected for admission to an IIT cannot attempt the examination again in the future. From 2008 six new IITs have been opened with 120 seats each increasing the total no.of seats to almost 7000.[img][/img][img][/img]

Truely a tough examination to crack. But once cracked you will never be short of cash.

Well I can tell you guys about the new pattern...
IIT-JEE exam conducted this year on 12 April , 2009 was an objective exam though but the introduction of a new section in the second paper kind of brought back the subjective essence of the paper. This section included 8 questions of 4 marks and -1 marking for wrong answer. Each question had 10 options as integers from 0-9 (i.e. for each question the answer is a SINGLE DIGIT NUMBER). So it made the second paper quite subjective and time consuming as you had to calculate the value.
Further the section containing multiple choice answers was this time included under negative marking unlike the previous year pattern. So this time the guessing was confined to the matrix type questions only.
Overall this years paper has been adjudged as a difficult one compared to the previous year and the cutoff might dip than previous year.
AFTER ALL IITJEE IS KNOW FOR SURPRISES!!!

Yeah when I used to go for coaching classes( called as BASE) , we used to have according to the new format where this section was included. I had to leave all the answers blank. Lol. As it is my whole paper used to be blank.

amanroc did u go for any coaching classes??