UGC-NET Sociology Paper Faces Allegations of Errors and Syllabus Discrepancies

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NEW DELHI: The UGC-NET paper meant to test sociology candidates has itself come under scrutiny, with aspirants alleging that the June 30 exam was riddled with spelling errors, garbled names of key thinkers, awkward Hindi translations and questions that appeared disconnected from the prescribed syllabus.

Candidates alleged that names and terms central to sociology were mangled in the question paper: “Ritzer” appeared as “Putzer”, “social” as “oval”, “Parsons” as “Parsow”, “Ghurye” as “Ghunye”, “A R Desai” as “A K Desai” and “Nussbaum” as “Nusbaut”. They claimed the errors were not isolated typos but part of a larger problem of poor paper-setting and inadequate quality checks in a national eligibility examination conducted by NTA.

Several candidates who appeared for the sociology paper alleged that the questions had spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, weak Hindi translations and confusing phrasing, making parts of the paper difficult to comprehend.

Candidate Antara Chakrabarty took to X to allege that the paper had “crossed all limits of academic deceit and accountability”. She claimed the paper asked questions that appeared AI-generated and included “random thinkers and books” not associated with the syllabus.

“Not even getting started on the irregularity of the paper asking AI-generated questions, random thinkers and books not even remotely associated with the syllabus provided. This is where the last nail in the coffin comes. 50% of the paper had terrible spelling errors and grammatically disastrous sentence formation,” she wrote.

Listing the alleged errors, she added: “Thinkers like ‘Ritzer’ was replaced as ‘Putzer’, ‘social’ was given as ‘oval’, ‘Parsons’ as ‘Parsow’, ‘Ghurye’ as ‘Ghunye’, A R Desai as ‘A K Desai’, ‘Nussbaum’ as ‘Nusbaut’ and many more. The Hindi translation of the questions was framed as if translated by a 5-year-old. Students could not even understand the questions, let alone attempt them.”

“Half the time went in literally making sense of what nonsense was scribbled in the name of a paper like NET, which is literally supposed to make you eligible for Asst Prof/PhD admissions. Is this some joke? Call the profs who framed this paper to sit and attempt,” she wrote.

Another X user alleged that the paper was “filled with spelling errors, arbitrary questions, and the omission of many foundational sociological thinkers in favour of content that appeared outside the prescribed syllabus”. The user also questioned a question asking candidates to arrange former education ministers in chronological order, arguing that it did not meaningfully assess critical thinking in sociology.

The complaints come even as the UGC-NET English paper has drawn criticism after 67 of 150 questions were found to be identical to questions asked in the 2024 exam, with the sequence of answer options also reportedly unchanged.

A senior NTA official said that it has not come across any issues. "However, if anything is brought to our notice we will put it to our subject experts and also address the issues as per our redressal system. Moreover, there will be key challenges which will be available to the candidates. Wrong questions can be dropped as in the past," said the official.