Major Differences Between JEE Main and JEE Advanced Examinations

The first preference of every engineering aspirant is getting a seat in any of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). For admission to IITs, candidates need to first go through the JEE-Main exam and then those who qualify for the Main exam have to qualify the JEE Advanced exam. JEE Main is conducted by the National Testing Agency (earlier, it was CBSE), while JEE Advanced is organized by the zonal IITs on a rotational basis. Thus, JEE Main and JEE Advanced are interrelated yet different. Often the students get confused between these two exams. Thus, here is an attempt to clear things.

This article intends to bring out the differences between both the exams. Here is how the two examinations differ from each other:

Purpose:

JEE Main: The exam is conducted for admission to undergraduate engineering courses offered by IITs, NITs, and other institutes funded by the Central government.

JEE Advanced: The exam is conducted for admission to undergraduate engineering courses offered by all the India Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad.

Thus, the basic difference between the exams is that they are conducted for admission to different institutes.

Eligibility:

JEE Main: Candidates should have passed/appearing in class 12^th examination or equivalent level of education. There is no minimum percentage for appearing in the JEE Main exam but for admission to IIITs, NITs, and CFTIs, candidates should have secured 75% marks (65% for SC/ST) or they must be in the top 20 percentile in class 12^th examination.

JEE Advanced: The eligibility criteria for appearing in the advanced exam is qualifying the JEE Main exam and appearing among the top 2,24,000 candidates.

Number of Attempts:

JEE Main: Students can appear for the JEE Main exam for three consecutive years.

JEE Advanced: Students can give the JEE Advanced exam only for two consecutive years.

Mode of Examination:

JEE Main: There are two papers in the Main examination. Paper I is conducted in the online mode (candidates can opt for one), while Paper II is conducted only in offline mode.

JEE Advanced: JEE Advanced is also conducted for two papers. Both paper I and Paper II are conducted in online mode only.

Medium of Question Paper:

JEE Main: For all examination centres, question papers will be in English and Hindi languages. For centres in Gujarat, Daman & Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the question papers will be in English, Hindi, and Gujarati.

JEE Advanced: The question papers will be available in only English and Hindi languages.

Apart from all these differences, the difficulty level in JEE Main is slightly less than that in JEE Advanced. Hope this article has cleared the confusion between both the papers.