Dear professionals This is to express my strong disagreement with Mr. Vimal's observations regarding UGC-NET pattern. He says that earlier ugc-net was a mere "handwriting competition". Mr. Vimal should remember that Ist and IInd papers of NET were always objective type and the IInd paper is subject based. A candidate should qualify a minimum mark in each paper and a specific score in both the papers together for his 3rd paper to be evaluated. This means that a person who does not have knowledge of his subject cannot qualify NET. Moreover NET is a national level test for finding out capable candidates with enough subject knowledge and teaching aptitude. A person merely having good subject knowlede without adequate presentation skills cannot become a good teacher. From this point of view earlier pattern of 3rd paper was effective in testing the subject knowledge as well as the presentation skills of the candidates. In a descriptive paper, it is not important how much you write, it is rather more important what you write and how you present it. It is very obvious that a person with good subject knowledge and average presentation skills can easily qualify UGC-NET regardless of the pattern. Regarding 2012 June pattern of NET, it can be said to be more luck driven, as there was no negative marking. UGC should have executed the minimum responsibility to filter out those candidates who mark answers through mere guessing without any sound knowledge in the subject field. Negative marking could have solved this issue upto a limit. Moreover it is not good from the part of any professional to underestimate the subject knowledge of other professionals out of his/her own frustration. regards Dhanyasree Research and Teaching Assistant IGNOU headquarters New Delhi. -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.