Tamil Nadu fares poorly with only one candidate in the top 50; Kalpana Kumari from Bihar comes first with a perfect score of 360 in biology

Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, among States with a high number of candidates, have performed well in the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) examinations, the results for which were announced by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Monday.

However, Tamil Nadu fared relatively poorly, with just 45,336 candidates among the 1,14,602 (close to 39.6%) who appeared making the cut. Maharashtra also had a poor qualification rate (39.6%).

Rajasthan accounted for the highest qualification rate with 58,738 candidates from among 79,057 clearing it.

Kerala’s qualification rate was 66.74% and Andhra Pradesh’s was 72.55%. In Delhi, 73.5% of candidates made the cut.

AIIMS, JIPMER excluded

Candidates for admission to all medical programmes in private and government medical colleges, barring AIIMS and JIPMER, Puducherry, are selected through NEET. Among the top 50 are eight candidates from Delhi, seven from Gujarat, five from Andhra Pradesh, four from Uttar Pradesh, three from Punjab, two from Telangana, and one from Tamil Nadu.

While 79.96-% of the candidates wrote the exam in English, 11.04% did so in Hindi, 4.31% in Gujarati, 3.02% in Bengali, 2.06% in Kannada, 1.86% in Tamil and 0.13% in Urdu.

Also Read Notice to MCI, CBSE on plea against NEET upper age limit

Cut-offs

The cut-off percentile – a method of knowing what percentage of candidates a particular candidate has done better than — for the general category is the 50th percentile and that for OBC, SC and ST candidates is the 40th percentile.

As for cutoff scores, the cut-off for general category is 691-119 and that for OBCs, SCs and STs is 118-96.

A total of 6,34,897 general category candidates are above the cut-off percentile. The numbers for OBCs, SCs and STs are 54653, 17209 and 7446, respectively.

With a perfect score in biology (botany and zoology), Kalpana Kumari from Sheohar in Bihar has emerged as the all-India topper.

She secured 691 marks out of 720, securing 360 out of 360 in biology (botany and zoology), 171 out of 180 in physics and 160 out of 180 in chemistry.

“She studied so hard that she even skipped meals, and we had to tell her not to study so much,” her father Rakesh Mishra, a lecturer at the District Institute of Education and Training at Sitamarhi, told The Hindu over phone.