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Vidyarthi Vigyan Manthan (VVM) is a national science contest open to students from Class 6 onwards, and it is taken online from home. Many students prepare only the textbook science and lose out because of one rule about the other section. This post explains who can take VVM, how the first round is marked, with a worked example, what the later rounds offer and how to prepare.
What is Vidyarthi Vigyan Manthan?
According to the official VVM website, VVM is an initiative of Vijnana Bharati (VIBHA), in collaboration with the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM). It is open to students from Class 6 to Class 11 studying under CBSE, ICSE and state boards.
Key facts from the site:
The fee is ₹200, whether a student registers individually or through the school.
The exam is app-based. Students take it on their own smartphone, laptop or desktop from home, and the app runs on Windows and Android only.
Papers are offered in English, Hindi and twelve regional languages, including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi and Urdu. If fewer than 100 students register for a language other than English or Hindi, the paper is given in English or Hindi only.
Questions are based on NCERT and state board textbooks, plus logic and reasoning.
How is the school-level exam marked?
The VVM site describes the school-level online exam (Level 1) as 90 minutes, in two sections:
Section A, 30 minutes, 40 questions, 160 marks: 20 questions on Indian contributions to science and 20 on the life stories of three Indian scientists, Anna Mani, Asima Chatterjee and Rohini Godbole. VIBHA provides this study material in digital form only. There is no negative marking.
Section B, 60 minutes, 60 questions, 240 marks: 12 questions each on physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, and logic and reasoning. Class 11 students also have maths-stream and biology-stream versions with 15 questions in each of four subjects. Each wrong answer costs 1 mark.
The rule that matters: Section B is marked only if a student scores at least 50% in Section A, that is, 80 of 160.
Worked example (sample numbers). Each question carries 4 marks, since 160 ÷ 40 = 4 and 240 ÷ 60 = 4.
Student P gets 21 Section A questions right: 21 × 4 = 84, which is at least 80, so Section B is marked. In Section B she gets 38 right, 10 wrong and leaves 12. Her Section B score is 38 × 4 − 10 × 1 = 152 − 10 = 142. Total: 84 + 142 = 226 out of 400.
Student Q gets 19 Section A questions right: 19 × 4 = 76, below 80. His Section B is not marked at all, however well he did, so his total is 76.
Two more right answers in Section A would have changed Q's result completely.
What happens after the school round?
The top 25 rankers in each class, on total marks from both sections, go on to the State Level Camp, according to the VVM site. The site lists a national camp after that, with these awards:
National winners get cash prizes of ₹25,000, ₹15,000 and ₹10,000 for the first, second and third rankers in each class, a Srijan internship and the Bhaskara Scholarship of ₹2,000 a month for one year.
Zonal winners, the top three per class in each zone, get ₹5,000, ₹3,000 and ₹2,000 and a Srijan internship.
The Srijan internship is training of one to three weeks at a national lab or research institution such as DRDO, ISRO, CSIR or BARC.
Every eligible participant gets a participation certificate.
Rules and dates change from year to year, so check the current year's brochure on the site before you plan.
Which mistakes cost students marks?
Skipping Section A. Students who know their textbooks well still fail the 80-mark gate.
Guessing freely in Section B. A wrong answer costs 1 mark, so skip questions you cannot narrow down.
Changing devices. The site asks students to use the same device they used for mock exams, fully charged and with the app updated.
Waiting for printed material. The Section A material is digital only.
An eight-week preparation plan
Weeks 1 to 3: Section A. Read the VIBHA material on Indian contributions to science and on Anna Mani, Asima Chatterjee and Rohini Godbole. After each reading, close it and write ten questions with answers from memory.
Weeks 4 to 6: Section B. Revise your class textbooks in physics, chemistry, maths and biology, and do ten logic and reasoning questions a day.
Weeks 7 and 8: mock tests. Take every mock test in the app and mark each wrong answer as a knowledge gap or a careless slip.
Self-testing is the point of steps 1 and 3. In Roediger and Karpicke's 2006 study, students who practised recall retained substantially more after two days and a week than students who re-read the same passages.
If you are not sure which textbook topics to revise first, Fermi's AI tutor can work out what you already know and build a plan for the session, so revision starts at your weak spots. Older students can also look at our guide to the junior science olympiad, NSEJS.
Today, open the VVM website, read the current year's exam pattern and download the Section A material.
