Why CUET-UG ‘normalises’ marks, and how it differs from other scoring systems | Explained News,The Indian Express
The National Testing Agency and the University Grants Commission (UGC) maintain that the normalisation of marks is the best method available to offer a level playing field to all candidates who took the entrance exam.
The NTA and the University Grants Commission (UGC) maintain that the normalisation of marks is the best method available to offer a level playing field to all candidates who took the entrance exam, saying it was drawn up by a committee of experts from the Indian Statistical Institute, IIT Delhi, and Delhi University.
The CUET-UG was held on multiple dates and multiple sessions between July 15 and August 30. As a result, there were different sets of question papers for every subject. Naturally, there were variations in the level of difficulty of question papers on the same subject. Moreover, in the case of CUET-UG, there were apprehensions that those taking the test in the initial set of dates may not be able to meet the performance level of candidates who appeared in dates fixed in August. The normalisation formula is supposed to address these concerns by ensuring that candidates are neither benefitted nor disadvantaged due to any such factor.
Is this method applied in the case of all entrances?
Yes, normalisation is used to compare the performances of students on a common scale even in the case of entrances such as JEE Main (engineering). However, there is a difference. In the case of JEE Main, the percentile scores are normalised. Before going further, we need to know what a percentile is. Simply put, percentile denotes the relative performance of a candidate compared to those who took the test in the same session. A 100 percentile indicates that 100% candidates of a particular session have scored equal to or less than the topper. A student with a percentile score of 70 would indicate that she has scored more than 70% of the candidates of her session.
In the case of JEE Main, the raw marks obtained by the students are first transformed into a scale ranging from 0 to 100 for each session of examinees. As a result, the toppers of two different sessions may have different raw scores, but both their percentile scores will be 100. The same applies to each category of percentile. But in the case of CUET-UG, raw scores are converted into percentile scores and then into normalised scores. But universities will consider only the normalised raw score while preparing merit lists. This method has been shown to be accurate for estimating normalised marks of candidates when the tests are held in multiple sessions with varying difficulty levels in a given subject, according to the NTA.
Rating: 5