Bangalore: The All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) which was held on Sunday had a 'moderate' difficulty level despite of the paper being set on the expected lines of students, leaving them baffled with the differential marking scheme.

Although the AIEEE had given it a skip in its 2009 paper, but it is not for the first time that it has introduced differential marking.

"Differential marking was expected in the entrance examination, but what came as a shock was that there were many lengthy questions worth eight marks which ate my time. As a result I was unable to attempt the simpler ones," said a disheartened candidate Veena Chandran.

There were 24 questions for four marks each from each of the three subjects, i.e., Physics, Chemistry and Biology and six questions of eight marks each.

The entrance examination was divided into two sessions, the first one comprised of the morning session which began at 9:30 a.m. with 30 questions each from Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics while the afternoon session tested students in Mathematics, Aptitude and included a separate section for B-Architecture and B-Planning.

Ajay Antony, course director for Indian Institute of Technology- Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) Training, at TIME said that, "Those who had not apprised themselves with the old examination patterns would have definitely faced the difficulty in planning the paper."

"The eight marks questions are ought to be tough and more time consuming while many of them in Physics require a sound conceptual understanding. The numerical problems are astutely set keeping in mind the time frame and the continuity required. If a student falters in one of the step he tumbles down further ending up with a wrong answer. This time questions in Mathematics were more student friendly," he said.