National Testing Agency (NTA) is going to provide more than 3000 JEE Main practice test centres for the aspirants. As it was clearly stated in the press conference held on 7 July 2018 that the practice test centres will be available for candidates who are not much familiar with computers. These practice centres will be available to students from the third week of August 2018 which is less than a month away. Last year, out of the total 11,50,000 students only 2,25,000 students appeared for the JEE Main Computer-based test. Looking at these figures, it can be easily said that the number of students who required the test practice centres is going to be very high. Along with the practice test centres, a mobile application will also be launched to help the students in selecting the nearest centres and choosing an appropriate slot.
Challenges in providing NTA test practice centres
The test practice centres for JEE Main will be the engineering colleges and schools in an area with a computer centre within its campus. One thing that is vague is the number of such buildings in rural areas. The number of such schools and colleges is very limited when it comes to rural areas. It will be a big challenge for NTA is to ensure that JEE aspirants from various rural areas get the benefit of these test practice centres.
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What will be the timing of JEE Main practice centres?
NTA is yet to announce the schedule for the practice sessions that are going to be conducted at the JEE Main 2019 practice centres. Looking at the quantum of students who gave the exam in pen and paper-based mode, the practice sessions will be conducted on weekends in multiple sessions.
It is yet to be decided that these JEE Main practice centres will be used as exam centres as well. Last year, a total of 258 cities conducted the engineering entrance test in computer-based mode. Thus, it can be expected that more than 250 cities will be able to provide JEE Main practice centres.
Changes in JEE Main 2019
This year, NTA won't introduce any changes in JEE Main exam pattern and syllabus. However, JEE Main 2019 major changes by NTA, such as
- JEE will be a computer-based test only
- JEE Main will be held twice a year and candidates can appear for both the sessions
- Introduction of Artificial Intelligence to set random questions
- Psychometric analysis of the test
- Candidates can revisit the questions and review them as well
- JEE Main 2019 will be held on more than two days i.e. at least on 8 different slots
