Why CUET-UG ‘normalises’ marks, and how it differs from other scoring systems

Source: The post is based on the article “Why CUET-UG ‘normalises’ marks, and how it differs from other scoring systems” published in Indian Express on 23rd September 2022.

What is the News?

The National Testing Agency’s (NTA) decision to “normalise” Common University Entrance Exam(CUET) scores came in for criticism from a section of students who called the process “unfair” and said it may impact their chances of getting a seat in top colleges and universities.

What is Normalisation?

Normalisation is a process for revising the score of one student in a way that it becomes comparable with the score of another. 

This becomes necessary when an examination in the same subject is held in multiple sessions, each with a different paper.

Is the normalisation method applied in other entrance exams also?

Yes, normalization is used to compare the performances of students on a common scale even in the case of entrances such as JEE Main (engineering). 

How is CUET-UG normalisation different from others?

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.

On the other hand, in the case of CUET, UGC adopted the normalisation formula using the equipercentile method. For this, the percentile for each candidate is calculated by comparing their raw marks with other candidates in the same session. These percentiles are then equated and converted into normalised marks.

Note: 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% of 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 in her session.