New Delhi, July 18 -- The NEET-UG 2026 re-examination, held after the National Testing Agency cancelled the original May 3 test over an alleged paper leak, has produced two contrasting records - the second-lowest attendance since NTA began conducting the exam in 2019, and the highest qualifying cut-off ever recorded. Data released by NTA on Thursday night show that 1.999 million of 2.280 million registered candidates appeared for the June 21 re-exam - an attendance rate of 87.72%, nine percentage points below the96.72% recorded on May 3, with 205,140 fewer candidates turning up. It is the lowest attendance in any non-pandemic NEET and the second-lowest overall after 2020, when Covid-19 pushed attendance down to 85.57%. Attendance had otherwise been above mid-90s - from 92.85% in 2019, recovering to 95.63% in 2021 and 94.24% in 2022 in two years still blighted by Covid-19 outbreaks, then above 97% in both 2023 and 2025. In 2024, attendance was 96.97%. Of the 2,406,079 students registered in 2024, 2,333,297 appeared. NTA cancelled the May 3 exam on May 12, days after receiving an email alleging that a circulated "guess paper" substantially overlapped with the actual question paper. It announced the re-examination on May 15 for June 21. The CBI, probing the leak, has arrested 13 people so far. NTA officials did not respond to HT's requests for comment on the fall in attendance and rise in cut-off marks. The drop hit women harder than men. Comparing with 2025 data, male attendance fell from 97.04% to 89.54% - a decline of 7.5 percentage points - while female attendance fell more sharply, from 97.09% to 86.44%, a drop of 10.65 points....