IIT Roorkee: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, has responded to complaints about a large variation in student scores between Paper 1 and Paper 2 of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced 2026, saying the disparity can be explained using "Chebyshev's inequality" and "basic statistical principles" rather than any error in assessment.
A number of JEE candidates reportedly received different marks across the two papers. Students took to social media, flagging the discrepancy after results were released last week, sharing score comparisons that suggested unusually high swings for several candidates.
A user on X, Ananya Chopra, shared the huge difference between Paper 1 and Paper 2 marks, highlighting that a student scored -3 in Paper 1 and 104 in Paper 2.
Replying to Ananya, Manindra Agrawal, Professor and Director, IIT Kanpur, said that such claims show a lack of understanding of basic statistics. "When there are 60,000 students, some will have large gaps in marks for two papers," he asserted, supporting his claim using Chebyshev's inequality.
"The existence of a large score gap between the two papers is not, by itself, evidence of any irregularity. There is no indication of cheating or malpractice at any stage of the examination process, the institute added.