Students appear for the JEE-Advanced exam at St Anne’s High School on Purulia Road in Ranchi on Sunday. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Aspirants who cracked JEE-Mains last month, appeared for the IIT-JEE Advanced on Sunday.

More than 1,500 students from across five centres in Ranchi and 800 aspirants from two centres — Loyola School and DBMS Kadma High School — in Jamshedpur took the most sought-after engineering exam.

With a gap of two hours in between, the first paper was from 9am to noon, while the second was from 2pm to 5pm.

The two papers had equal number of questions on mathematics, physics and chemistry.

Each paper, of 180 marks, had multiple-choice questions, column matching and others. There was negative marking in two out of three sections in each subject.

By and large, candidates found the exam satisfactory. However, a few rued that the second paper was tough. Among the three subjects, physics questions were relatively difficult, aspirants said.

“It was satisfactory overall, but the physics portion was difficult across both the papers. Maths and chemistry were relatively easier. My examination went well and I hope to crack it,” said Adarsh Omkar, a student of Tagore Academy, who tried JEE Advanced twice for a better score this time.

Teachers of various JEE coaching centres also agreed that chemistry was the easiest of the three papers.

“I have spoken to a couple of students and all seemed to have agreed that chemistry was better. For a few, math was difficult and some insisted on physics. When I analysed the paper, I too felt that the physics question were a little tricky,” said Shyam Bhushan, director of Jamshedpur-based Narayana IIT Academy.

Ranchi-based FIITJEE’s academic head Rajesh Kumar, too, conceded that chemistry was the easiest papers.

“Compared to earlier times, this time the papers was fully based on fundamentals and basic-level questions in mathematics, physics and chemistry,” he said, adding that around 350 students from their centre had taken the test on Sunday.

The examinations went off smoothly in both Ranchi and Jamshedpur without any untoward incident.

The district administration in the both the places had taken proper measures for the examination.

The results of JEE Advanced will be declared on June 19.

Those who don’t make it, can wait for JEE-Mains merit list, which will be announced on July 7 for admissions to the NITs.