Mumbai: The state’s CET cell has decided to cancel the MHT-CET exam held in the morning slot of April 27 and conduct a re-exam. Officials said the re-exam will be scheduled on May 5. The decision came after several students complained of glaring errors in the questions through email, letters, phone calls and even physical visits to its office.
The CET cell acknowledged that 21 questions had errors and the options provided as answers were jumbled up during translation. Close to 25,000 students, who took the exam in the morning slot, were affected. The exam was conducted in English, Marathi and Urdu. No error was found in the Marathi and Urdu question papers. The CET cell is likely to initiate action against the paper setters for the errors.

MHT-CET exams were held from April 9-27 in several centres across the state. Around 7.65 lakh students had registered for them. However, after the morning session (one of the 16 slots) of the April 27 exam, several students complained of errors in questions in the mathematics section of the PCM (physics, chemistry and mathematics) group.
A parent said the options were completely disconnected from the questions. “For instance, the questions asked were on geometrical planes, but the answers were in degrees for angles. And this disconnect happened in over 20 questions. First, I did not believe my son. Then many students started complaining and there were several videos online where students raised their voices.”
The question papers had 50 questions each on physics, chemistry and mathematics. While chemistry and physics questions carry one mark each, mathematics questions were for two marks, which could have led to a loss of over 40 marks in the 200-mark question paper, significantly affecting students’ ranks, said parents.
An official from the cell said errors were found in 21 questions in the English version of the paper. The official said they crept in during translation of questions from Marathi to English, and some answer options were jumbled up, which meant all options for some questions were wrong.
MHT-CET is conducted for admissions to colleges offering engineering, pharmacy and agricultural courses.
The CET cell, in a notice issued on Wednesday, said the decision to re-conduct the exam has been made keeping in mind students’ loss. It said the list of candidates who have to re-appear for the exam will be published on the portal and admit cards will be made available. Candidates should regularly visit the CET cell’s portal for official information.