IIT-JEE 2008 Test Pattern Analysis, Key and Solutions


Dear Students,

IIT-JEE 2008 is over. Students coming out of the examination venues after the 6 hours of testing reacted with mixed emotions about the papers. Two years of preparation, sustained effort and all the practice was put to test in the two papers of three hours each. Students and parents who had started turning up at the venue from 08:00 in the morning finally left after Paper 2 got over at 5:00 pm with mixed feelings about their performance. The comparison of performance with classmates, checking with the Key and Solutions offered by different sources etc continued late into the night. Of course, the occasion would demand that kind of post-exam analysis, given the fact that the total number of students vying for admissions into the IITs is 3.2 lakhs this year.

Any which way, now the testing phase is over. RELAX. Take comfort in the feeling that you have done your very best "under the circumstances". When you check the key and solutions provided in this site, there could be several instances when you would ask yourselves "How could I miss that one?" OR "Did I make that same calculation error again" OR "Oh.. I missed that part in the Matrix-Match Type" etc…

Not to worry…… Let us assure you one thing. You are not alone… You have the company of several hundreds of other serious test takers in sharing this feeling. So does shared sympathy make the case any better for you? Of course …. Let us look at the hard facts. IIT-JEE is a competitive examination and the ranking is relative. AIR is based on "RELATIVE RANKING". Which means, when many other test takers have also made similar errors in judgment, the field evens out…. How do we know that?

Well, T.I.M.E. Faculty Members have been talking to hundreds of students at different test venues across the country all through the day – From New Delhi to Trivandrum. First, we met the students just before Paper 1 examination to wish them good luck, then we met them after 12:00 and then we met them again after 05:00 pm. We were physically present at the test venues and we have sized up the exam realities very clearly. And we are proud to say that T.I.M.E. had put up the key and solution of both papers on Sunday, 13th April 2008 itself.

When you proceed to check the Key and Solution for IIT-JEE 2008, keep this in mind "if you have missed some questions, so have many other test takers". Our analysis of Paper 1 and Paper 2 also follows from our extensive interactions with students after the examination.

In general, Mathematics was the thorn in shoe for the majority of the students in both the papers. Students really felt “stretched” by the length of calculations involved. In both papers, Physics was moderate in the level of difficulty it offered but clearly checked the  quality of understanding of the fundamental concepts in all the test areas . IIT-JEE 2008 was definitely more challenging than the IIT-JEE 2007. In this situation, Chemistry was the saving grace – relatively more scorable among the three subjects.

Also, one variation in the marking scheme of the matrix-match type made good news for the students. Each question of this variety carried 6 marks each. In a previous edition of IIT-JEE a student would get either 6 marks or nothing. But in IIT-JEE 2008, a student would stand to gain one mark if he/she were to get the options correct in one row. This was a welcome gesture from the marking scheme as efforts that lead to partially correct answers were also rewarded in this section..

Wishing you the very best in the other exams like AIEEE etc …


Academic Team
IIT-JEE Coaching
T.I.M.E.

Key and solution for IIT-JEE 2008 are available here.