Difficulty in Education: What Makes Exams and Degrees Hard in India

When we talk about difficulty, the level of challenge in learning or passing exams that requires sustained effort, mental endurance, and emotional resilience. Also known as academic pressure, it's not just about how hard the questions are—it's about how much you're asked to give up to succeed. In India, difficulty isn’t just a number on a scale. It’s the 16-hour days in Kota, the sleepless nights before NEET, the silent stress of a family betting everything on one exam. It’s the weight of being told you must be top 1% to matter.

Some of the biggest sources of this pressure come from a few key paths. The IIT JEE, the national entrance exam for India’s top engineering institutes, known for extreme competition and low acceptance rates isn’t just hard—it’s a filter that separates thousands from a single dream. IIT Bombay alone sees over 2 lakh applicants for under 1,500 seats in Computer Science. Then there’s NEET, the medical entrance exam that determines who gets into India’s limited government medical colleges. Over 20 lakh students compete for 1 lakh seats. These aren’t just tests—they’re life-defining events with no second chances.

But difficulty isn’t just about entrance exams. It’s also in the degrees themselves. Chartered Accountancy, a professional qualification requiring years of study, exams, and articleship under strict supervision demands discipline most 18-year-olds haven’t even heard of. And then there’s the MBA, a degree often seen as a shortcut to power, but one that demands relentless networking, case studies, and real-world decision-making under pressure. People think it’s easy because it’s not math-heavy—but that’s the trap. It’s harder because you’re not solving equations—you’re solving people, markets, and ethics.

Here’s the truth no one tells you: difficulty doesn’t come from the subject. It comes from the system. The same student who struggles with physics might crush a coding project. The one who breaks down over NEET mock tests might ace a business simulation. The real question isn’t "Is this hard?"—it’s "Why are we measuring everyone the same way?"

The posts below don’t just list what’s tough. They show you what’s real. You’ll find data on IIT cutoffs, NEET coaching costs, MBA salary outcomes, and why coding doesn’t need advanced math. You’ll see how much time people actually spend studying, what cities work best, and who earns what after the exams are over. No fluff. No hype. Just what works—and what doesn’t.