The process of calculation of equated scores in MAHCET 2015 result adopted by Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) Maharashtra has created panic among far from satisfied thousands of test takers who are now pressing for re-examination. Hundreds of the candidates have not only contacted Dr S K Mahajan Director DTE Maharashtra but have also aired their grievances before the Education Minister of Govt of Maharashtra.
MAH-MBA/MMS CET 2015 was conducted on March 14 & 15, 2015 in 2 sessions on each day. Reports of technical glitches at some centres compelled DTE Maharashtra to reschedule the exam for the particular centre for next day. Another grave issue was the appearance of wrong questions and wrong answer options in the exam which made DTE Maharashtra not to evaluate 59 questions out of 800 questions in the exam.
What transpired
MAHCET 2015 test takers for admission to MBA/MMS programmes across Maharashtra B schools had to suffer from technical glitches as well as from appearance of erroneous questions in all the 4 sessions of the exam. To provide level playing field to all the MAHCET 2015 takers, DTE Maharashtra has used score normalization process for all the sessions by adopting Equi- percentile Method in declaration of MAHCET 2015 result. The purpose to use the process was to take care of the difference in difficulty level, so that no candidate feels he/she is at a loss because he/she attempted a session which had tougher set of questions.
While processing the MAHCET 2014 result, DTE Maharashtra has taken the Percentile scale of Batch II as the reference base for equi-percentile method. The reason cited by DTE for the taking the session-2 exam of March 14, 2015 as reference base is that the maximum number of 14817 candidates appeared for this batch and rest of the batches had less candidates in each session.
Oblivious of the impact the policy might create in the scoring pattern of the MAHCET 2015 takers DTE Maharashtra says “Batch II percentile scale is considered as Reference, as the number of students appeared is more.” The process adopted by DTE has been to take the percentile of any batch other than Batch II; locate the percentile in the Batch II percentile scale to map. If it does not map follow the interpolation method and find out the corresponding marks. The values of percentiles are arranged in the descending order irrespective of the score obtained. DTE says that the values of percentiles are the same as in their respective batches.
Scoring criteria favoured batch-2:Dissatisfaction soars
Thousands of MAHCET 2015 takers are of the view that those who appeared in the exam in slots other than slot II on the first day of the exam have been put to great loss and have scored lesser percentile than they could have scored, if any other batch had been taken as the reference base batch. For example, according to Anup Gajbhiye one of the MAHCET takers in slot-1 on March 14, 2015 with application ID MB15129397, “a student who has given exam in second slot enjoyed the most because it was taken as reference batch i.e. actual marks obtained by the student when converted to Marks out of 200 is the final Equated score” Now according to him the case would have been totally different had the slot-1 been taken as reference batch. In case of slot-1 on March 14, 2015 being taken as the base for Equating the percentile score , for an actual score of 132 marks the equated score would have been 145.856 intstead of 113.75 and a higher percentile than what has been awarded now.
Following table could bring home the point of the dissatisfied candidates who find themselves placed at a lower percentile for no fault of theirs
According to Anup “this kind of calculation seems very unfair for students of batch 1, as they got very less score when compared to their peers in other batches.” Apart from him hundreds of other candidates like Sarthak Pradhan & others have had round of meetings with Director DTE and have written an open letter to Mr Vinod Tawde education minister Govt of Maharashtra stating that Except for slot 1 which was scheduled at 10AM on March 14, 2015 for the corresponding marks obtained by the students there is increase in the equated score. There is difference of nearly 12% from the rest of the batches. As per the example above it was very unfortunate for a student who had given exam in 1st slot as equated score is highly reduced.
Candidates pressing for re-test
With the gloomy outcome of the meeting with Director DTE Maharashtra candidates have further pressed the demand for re-conducting MAHCET 2015. Sarthak and other test takers say “We had meeting with DTE, in presence of 100+ students and JBIMS director. Officials have understood about injustice happened to slot 1 and to the some extent to slot 2 also. We are continuously demanding RETEST as that is the only solution we are able to infer right now. Though, DTE has been denying for RETEST we won't give up till we get satisfactory solution.”
Sharing their gratitude for the support MBAUniverse.com has extended on the issue Sarthak and other candidates say “We are thankful for your support in terms of news and issues you have been highlighting.”
DTE: Supposed to resolve
Since merit is based on percentile, Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) Maharashtra is also not in favour of any injustice in award of scores to any candidate who has appeared in MAHCET 2015. But despite adopting the equi-percentile process certain flaws causing harm to the students have come up. Now the students after analyzing the impact of the process are not satisfied with the process adopted by DTE Maharashtra.
It is no other but DTE Maharashtra who has to find the solution to the problem. They could refer to other test conducting bodies of All India Tests like CAT/XAT and can try to go by the process adopted in these reputed exams.
In fact appearance of erroneous questions varying in number in each session of MAHCET 2015 is not the fault of the test takers. 59 questions not evaluated by DTE in MAHCET 2015 were also not equally divided across the 4 sessions. Making a particular session as reference batch since maximum number of candidates appeared in it, may also not satisfy the candidates. On the contrary it could raise questions on the creditability of the MAHCET 2015 exam. Now DTE has to find the best solution and one of them could be to award equal high percentile to the highest scorers of each session or taking other session as the reference batch and check whether the formula works well.
The grumbling dissatisfaction among the test takers could further aggravate the situation which should be defused by taking appropriate steps to satisfy the candidates. DTE should also remember that thousands of seats in number of B schools in Maharashtra remain vacant every year and not resolving the matter may further disenchant the candidates from taking future MAHCET tests.
To help out MAH CET 2015 candidates, MBAUniverse.com has started unique initiative to provide LIVE MAH CET 2015 Results update, news, Cut-offs, Expert guidance, DTE Admission Counselling and GD PI Updates for Admission 2015.
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