‘Two shifts are a disadvantage:’ NEET PG 2025 in 2 shifts; aspirants, medical bodies raise concerns

Many aspirants feel that conducting exams in multiple shifts may create an uneven playing field, as variations in the difficulty levels of question papers could put some students at a disadvantage.

“Conducting the exam in a single shift would ensure uniform difficulty levels for all candidates. NBE still has three months remaining for NEET PG 2025 and it can utilise the time for increasing the security measures and centres to conduct the exam in a single shift,” he said.

Many aspirants, he added, feel that the normalisation process is not effective and transparent which had even led to multiple court cases across the country last year.

Candidates who appeared in NEET PG exam in 2024 had raised concerns on transparency of results and normalisation process. The petitioners had demanded that NBE should release the NEET PG answer key, response sheets, raw and pre-normalised scores and normalised results of all shifts. They have also demanded that the release of the NEET PG answer keys, question papers should become a standard practice to ensure transparency. Petitioners had also requested the Court to suspend the counselling process till all concerns are addressed.

Another final year MBBS student from Delhi said: “This is a high-stakes exam where even a single mark can make a huge difference in rank. If one shift is even slightly more difficult than the other, students in that shift will be unfairly impacted.”

“NBEMS should release the normalisation formula along with the information bulletin. Last year, students raised concerns, but there was no clear answer. If normalization is not done properly, students in one shift could be unfairly ranked lower,” another NEET PG aspirant said.

Medical education experts also emphasize that score normalisation is essential to maintain fairness. However, the absence of an officially declared methodology has added to the uncertainty.

Last year, for the first time, NEET PG was held in two shifts instead of one. The exam took place on August 11, with sessions from 9 am to 12.30 pm and 3.30 pm to 7 pm.

Candidates were randomly assigned shifts to ensure equal group sizes and minimize bias. Due to this change, the Board implemented a normalization process. Results were based on raw scores and percentiles calculated up to seven decimal places. In case of ties, older candidates were ranked higher. The final merit list was determined by percentile scores across all shifts.

The Federation of All India Medical Associations (FAIMA), in a letter to NBEMS, criticised mark normalisation, calling it inconsistent and potentially biased.

They argued that different shift papers vary in difficulty, making fair normalization difficult and possibly disadvantaging candidates. A single-shift exam, they said, ensures uniformity, transparency, and fairness. FAIMA urged the board to revert to a single-shift format to uphold meritocracy.

Unhappy with the decision to conduct the postgraduate medical entrance test in two shifts, Dr Rohan Krishnan, founder of FAIMA, said: “NEET PG is taken by a total of only two lakh aspirants and it can easily be conducted in a single shift. When an exam is held in more than one shift, the question of being bias emerges.”

He further added: “I do not understand the mechanism and mathematical part of the normalisation process, but I do understand that when a controversy can be avoided, it should be avoided. I urge the associated bodies conducting NEET PG to consider conducting the exam in a single shift,” he said adding that when NEET UG for over 20 lakh candidates can be taken in a single shift, holding NEET PG in a single shift should not be a concern.

Many candidates and doctors have expressed their preference for a single-shift exam to ensure uniform difficulty levels.

Dr Dhruv Chauhan, a national council member of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) believes that the exam is conducted in two shifts due to the lack of an appropriate number of exam centres with proper security measures to conduct the exam fairly in a single shift.

“In short the insufficiency of NBE/NMC to conduct fair exam is leading to burden on doctors across country. When the government can approve a ‘One Nation – One Election, why can an exam conducting body cannot conduct One Nation One Exam.”

With NEET PG 2025 just three months away, candidates are eagerly waiting for the information bulletin to be released on the official website. Until then, the debate over multiple shifts and the need for a clear normalization process will continue.