Ramakrishna Mission Residential College (Autonomous) will test English honours aspirants through home assignments and viva voce, the decision necessitated by the Covid pandemic which forced the Narendrapur institute to scrap admission tests this year.

As for the science subjects, students will be shortlisted based on their plus-II and Class X board exam marks.

Till last year, the college used to select students based on their entrance test score and marks in the plus-II board exams.

The college has uploaded the new admission modalities on its website.

“This year we have introduced a new mechanism for screening candidates because admission tests cannot be held,” said Swami Sarvalokananda, the secretary of the Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Narendrapur.

The selection procedure for English entails that “there will be an online home assignment test of one-and-a-half-hour duration carrying 50 marks”. The candidates will be required to attempt two questions, of 25 marks each.

A teacher of the department said that last year they had awarded 70 per cent weightage to the admission test score and the rest to the plus-II score. “We worked out the model as this will help us get an idea about the prospective candidate’s command of the language,” he said.

The admission notification says: “The answers must be written in the candidates’ own handwriting (preferably in black ink) which may be verified at any later stage after the pandemic situation gets over.” The test will be held on September 4.

The candidates will have to send scanned copies of their answer scripts in “one single legible pdf format” to admengndp@gmail.com.

The notice says short-listing will be done based on marks obtained in plus-II English and the home assignment score. The short-listed candidates will be required to attend a viva voce of 30 marks through video call/audio call/WhatsApp call.

For physics, chemistry, math and statistics, students will be shortlisted based on their plus-II scores and the marks in the science subjects in the secondary board exams.

Last year, the departments had given weightage to the admission test score as well as the marks in the subjects concerned and the other two allied subjects in the plus-II board exams.