4 NEET-UG candidates score identical marks, Raj girl ranked first due to NTA's tie-breaker policy

New Delhi, Sep 8 (PTI) Four candidates scored 715 out of 720 marks, the highest this year in medical entrance exam NEET. However, they did not share the top rank, unlike last year.

The National Testing Agency used a new tie-breaker policy to award the first rank to Tanishka from Rajasthan. Delhi's Vatsa Ashish Batra is at the second spot while Hrishikesh Nagbhushan Gangule and Rucha Pawashe from Karnataka have been ranked third and fourth respectively.

According to NTA officials, nine factors in a pre-decided order have been used as a tie breaker to decided the ranks.

"In case of candidates scoring identical marks, candidate achieving higher marks or percentiles in Biology (Botany and Zoology) will be given preference followed by the candidate with the highest mark and percentile in Chemistry and subsequently the candidate who achieved the highest marks and percentile score in Physics in the test," a senior NTA official told PTI.

Candidates with fewer incorrect answers than correct answers in all the subjects in the test, followed by a candidate with the lowest proportion of incorrect responses to correct responses in Biology (Botany and Zoology) is the winner, followed by candidate with the lowest ratio of incorrect answers to correct answers in Chemistry, will be further deciding factors besides candidate with a lesser percentage of attempted incorrect answers and correct answers in Physics.

"In case there is still a tie between the candidates, candidate older in age, followed by their NEET application number in ascending order will be used as a tie breaker. It is important that every candidate gets a unique rank for counselling purposes and hence no two candidates have been tied at the same rank this year," the official added.

Last year, three candidates had shared the top rank. The candidates were Mrinal Kutteri from Telangana, Tanmay Gupta from Delhi and Karthika Nair from Maharashtra.

"Earlier also there was a tie-breaker formula but despite that three candidates were jointly awarded the first rank last year. From this year, we decided to adopt a new policy," the official said.

The three-point tie breaker policy used till last year chose candidate obtaining higher marks and percentile score in Biology (Botany and Zoology) in the test, followed by the candidate obtaining higher marks and percentile score in Chemistry followed by the candidate with less proportion of a number of attempted incorrect answers and correct answers in all the subjects in the test.

The results for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)-UG were announced on Wednesday.

As many as 9,93,069 (56.3 per cent) of the 17,64,571 candidates who appeared for the exam qualified. In keeping with the trend, girls outnumbered boys by over 1.3 lakh in qualifying the exam.

The range of qualifying marks this year dropped as compared to last year. While the range of qualifying marks for General and EWS categories was set at 715-117 as against 720-138 in 2021, the cut-off for OBC, SC/ ST categories came down to 116-93 from 137-108 in 2021.

Similarly, the qualifying marks range for General/EWS PwD candidates was 116-105 as against 137-122 in 2021. This year's qualifying marks range for disabled among OBC, SC/ST candidates was 104-93.

About 95 per cent attendance was recorded in the entrance examination held on July 17 at 3,570 different centres in 497 cities across the country and 14 cities outside India. PTI GJS RCJ