BhubaneswarSoyeb Aftab, who topped NEET on Friday with a perfect score of 720, credited her parents for the success, saying she never expected to get first place on the medical entrance exam even though she was optimistic.
Aftab, the son of housewife Sultan Razia and Sheikh Mohammad Abbas, a small business owner, said it was his mother who motivated him to aspire to be a doctor.
“I would like to give all the credit to my mother, who motivated me to aspire to be a doctor and was by my side the whole time,” he told PTI.
Aftab, 18, said his father gave him all the financial support, but that it was his mother who spent most of her time supporting him in his studies.
He said he moved to the Kota training center in Rajasthan after the class 12 board exam to prepare for the National Entrance and Eligibility Test (NEET).
“My mother and my younger sister accompanied me to Kota and made all the arrangements for the studies there,” he said.
The Rourkela boy said that most of his time during the day was spent in training class.
“At first I studied for only three hours at night and eventually increased the time as the exam got closer,” he said.
Aftab, who scored a perfect 720 out of 720 on the exam, said: “I am absolutely happy. There is no doctor in my family. I would like to study at AIIMS-New Delhi.”
“All the credit goes to my mother and father,” he said, reacting to his score.
Aftab said it was confident of getting a place in the top 50 after checking the answer key for all the questions, but never expected to pass the exam.
Aftab and Akansha Singh of Delhi scored 720 out of 720 points, but the boy Odisha was ranked first and Singh second according to the tiebreaker policy of the National Testing Agency, authorities said.
The tiebreaker policy takes into account factors such as age, grades by topic and the number of wrong answers, they said.
A total of 7.71,500 candidates have qualified for the exam for which more than 13.66 lakh candidates were taken.
The highest number of qualified candidates comes from Tripura (88,889), followed by Maharashtra (79,974).
The National Income and Eligibility Test (NEET) was conducted on September 13 amid strict precautions in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Starting this year, admissions to the MBBS course at 13 All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Puducherry, will also be done through NEET following the amendment in the National Medical Commission Act of 2019, approved by Parliament for the last time. year.
The test was offered in 11 languages: English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Hate, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, this year.
The exam was previously postponed twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the government decided to go ahead, despite opposition from one section, to mitigate any further academic losses.
The National Testing Agency had established strict standard operating procedures in light of the pandemic, including measures such as reducing the number of candidates per room from the first 24 to 12.
The NTA had also increased the number of centers from 2,546 in 2019 to 3,862 this year to ensure crowd management and staggered entry and exit protocols. The medical admission test is a paper and pencil exam and is done once a year.
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