For all its flaws, the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) has rested on one non-negotiable promise: that every student (nearly 12 to 14 lakh who appear for JEE Main each year) faces the same question paper. One could argue endlessly about pressure, the coaching menace, or punishing cut-offs, but never about whether the rules were identical for everyone in the room.
That very promise is now under strain.
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The IIT Council’s proposed shift to adaptive questioning, where the difficulty of questions changes based on a student’s earlier responses, is being framed as efficiency masquerading as fairness.
The underlying logic appears to be simple: perform well early, and the test gets harder; slip up and the algorithm recalibrates.
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