NEET Toppers: History Is Made As Two Students Score 100 Per Cent

Odisha’s Soyeb Aftab created history by securing a perfect 100 per cent score in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), results of which were announced by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Friday.

He scored 720 marks out of a total of 720 in the test and grabbed the top slot in the all India merit list.

Akanksha Singh from Delhi also scored 720 out of a total of 720 marks, but the NTA placed her on the second position in the all India merit list.

“It’s because of the tie break policy. When two candidates secure the same marks, their performance is compared by looking at the marks that they have secured in each of the subjects and the number of incorrect answers that they gave. The difference in their age is also considered to break the tie. In this case, Akanksha was younger than Aftab. Hence, she was placed on the second position,” an Education Ministry official clarified.

Tummala Snikitha from Telanagana was placed on the third position in the all India merit list as she scored 715 out of 720 in the test.

This is for the first time that the candidates have scored a perfect 100 per cent in the NEET exam.

Last year, Nalin Khandelwal from Rajasthan had secured the highest marks ever in the NEET. Out of 720 marks, he had scored 701 to emerge as the topper in the entrance test.
Over 15.97 lakh students had registered for the entrance test this year conducted on September 13. Of them, a total of 7,71, 500 students (56.43 per cent) qualified for the test.

The NTA recorded an increase in the number of candidates registering for the entrance exam by 5.14 per cent this year. However, over 2.42 lakh students did not turn up to take the examination, apparently due to the growing cases of a pandemic. The number of candidates who had skipped the entrance test last year was a little over 1.08 lakh.

The percentage of women qualifying for the NEET remained higher than those of the boys for yet another year. Over 7.48 lakh women appeared for the test. Of them, a total of 4,27,943 students (57.14 per cent) were declared as qualified. The number of men clearing the entrance exam remained at a little over 3.43 lakh out of a total of 6,18,075 students.

The test was conducted in 11 Indian languages including English. Of the total number of students, 79.08 per cent had registered for taking the entrance test in English, 12.80 per cent in Hindi, 3.70 per cent in Gujarati, 2.29 per cent in Bengali, 1.07 per cent in Tamil, 0.39 per cent in Marathi, 0.33 per cent in Assamese, 0.12 per cent in Urdu, 0.10 per cent in Telugu and 0.06 per cent in Kannada and 0.05 per cent in Odia.

Starting this year, the NEET scores will be considered by all medical colleges including the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) for admissions to undergraduate MBBS and BDS programs.

Last year, Parliament had passed an amendment to the National Medical Commission (NMC) Act, paving way for a single, national entrance test for admission into MBBS and BDS courses across the country. Before that, AIIMS, JIPMER, and a few other medical colleges conducted their entrance tests.