'Students pay for NTA’s mistakes': JEE Main 2025 answer key shows 9 errors, out-of-syllabus questions

NEW DELHI: Just days before the JEE Main result 2025, the National Testing Agency (NTA) is once again under fire - this time for multiple errors in the session 2 JEE Main answer key 2025. Candidates and experts have flagged at least 9 discrepancies in the JEE Mains session 2 answer key, sparking anxiety and confusion among aspirants awaiting their results. JEE Main Result 2025 Live

Keshav Agarwal, director of the media Coaching Federation of India (CFI), has questioned the recurring lapses and asked: "When will NTA be penalized for its errors and made accountable."

NTA faced scrutiny last year for multiple discrepancies in major entrance examinations, including NEET, CUET UG, and JEE Mains 2025. The credibility of the NTA hit after it dropped 12 questions from the JEE Main final answer key 2024, the highest in recent years. The errors occurred due to out-of-syllabus questions and errors in translation. Notably, the JEE Main syllabus is notified by the NTA months before the exam.

Once again, concerns over transparency, accuracy, and accountability are growing louder. Students have also claimed that their JEE Main response sheet had ‘blank’ answers and responses that were marked by them were wrongly recorded.

Out of the 9 errors pointed out by students in this year's answer key, as many as 5 questions were from physics, of which at least three were out-of-syllabus. Additionally, mathematics and chemistry had mistakes in 2 questions each. The NTA will declare the JEE Main results 2025 on April 17 on the official website, jeemain.nta.nic.in.

3 major problems with JEE Main 2025 session 2

Explaining the “new controversy”, Keshav Agarwal said there are three major problems with the JEE answer key released by the NTA.

1) Some questions did not have correct answers in the options provided by the NTA, leaving students searching for answers. Students reported frustration in spending time on invalid questions.

2) The answer key had some errors in questions that had the correct option. This forced students to pay a non-refundable fee of Rs 200 to challenge the questions.

3) There were at least 3 out-of-syllabus questions in the physics section. This makes students feel that they are not well prepared, which also decreases their morale.

JEE Main session 2 has 9 errors, 3 out-of-syllabus questions. (Source: CFI)

“NTA is not seeing that the answer that has been released is wrong with answers not given in the options. This means that answers are not solved correctly. This has happened the second time in the same JEE Mains exam,” Agarwal said.

“It (NTA) is testing so recklessly that there are errors in both answers and questions. And the children are paying the penalty for its failure. And this is happening every year. Last year we all saw what happened in the NEET debacle,” he added.