Neet topper 2020: how Rourkela’s Soyeb Aftab in Odisha scored 720 out of 720

NEET 2020 Results: The National Testing Agency (NTA) released the results of the NEET entrance medical exam on Friday night. NTA officials said that of the participants, two students scored the highest, according to an IE report.

Soyeb Aftab from Odisha and Delhi-based Akansha Singh scored 720 out of 720 on the exam. However, NTA has a tiebreaker based on factors such as age, number of wrong answers and subject ratings, on the basis of which Aftab was declared the best and Singh was ranked second, the report added.

Soyeb, a native of the Rourkela district in Odisha, comes from a family of entrepreneurs, and her father runs a construction company. The report quoted him as saying that his inspiration to become a doctor came from the fact that his family had no doctors. He said he knew that if he studied hard, he could become a doctor, adding that he wants to pursue cardiology.

So how did 18-year-old Soyeb pass the exam?

NEET 2020 Results: Topper Soyeb Aftab Study Strategy

Soyeb said she studied for 15 hours a day, of which four hours were for self-study. The remaining time included school and training classes. He added that he also made sure he was watching YouTube videos or playing games to maintain a balance between studying and relaxing.

While studying, he made sure that his attention was only on studying and nothing else.

The 18-year-old scored 96% on the Class XII exams and said he did not expect to get a perfect grade on the entrance exam and pass it.

The topper had gone to Kota from Rajasthan, famous for NEET training, and had signed up for a two-year training program. He was accompanied by his mother and his younger sister, who is 10 years old. Aftab has said that he wants to get his MBBS degree from the Indian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi.

This year, more than 13.66 lakhs of students appeared for NEET, of which 7.71,500 students passed. In terms of states, Tripura has produced the highest number of qualified candidates with 88,889, while Maharashtra ranks second with 79,974 qualified candidates coming from there.

In announcing the statement of the results on Twitter, Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank congratulated all the candidates, while praising and thanking the NTA and CMs of all states for ensuring that the exam it ran smoothly even during these testing times.

The NEET exam was postponed twice this year due to the pandemic, before the Center decided to go ahead with it on September 13 with strict measures in place. The exam was conducted, despite some opposition, to mitigate any additional academic losses for students. While conducting the exam, the NTA had also taken several steps to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, including reducing the number of candidates in an exam room from 24 to 12.