Health minister Dr Daulat Aher, accompanied by Medical Education secretary, T C Benjamin, today announced the pattern of the examination in a hurriedly convened press conference this evening in Mantralaya. Aher was confident that the examination would be a success and that there would not be any sort of confusion in the entire process.

Those students securing minimum 50 per cent marks in the HSC exam in the Physics, Chemistry and Biology group and English and having passed the examination in first attempt will be able to appear for the entrance examination. The percentage has been relaxed to 40 for the students from the reserved category. The entrance examination would be spread over two days, ie on a Saturday and the immediate Sunday intwo sessions. The first session will have two papers, Physics and Chemistry and the next session will have Biology and English. Each subject will carry 50 marks and the question paper will carry 50 multiple choice questions. Each session will be of 2.30 hoursThe syllabus for the examination will be the same as that for HSC. The professors who set question papers for HSC will set the same for this entrance examination. A total of five sets of question papers will be prepared to ensure a perfect examination. The difficulty level of the question papers will be the same of the HSC question papers.

Fifty per cent of marks secured by a student in HSC in each papers of PCBE will be added to the marks secured by him in each of the four subjects in the entrance examination and the final tally will then be considered to constitute the merit list for admissions.)

The application forms, priced at Rs 500 for open category students and Rs 250 for reserved category students, will be available at district collectoroffice after June 7, 1998. The forms will also be available at the 11 government medical colleges statewide. Any other information will be provided by the State Government as necessary.