JEE MAINS 2020 ALERT: HOW WILL MERIT LIST BE PREPARED?

NTA has made a new important announcement regarding the JEE Main 2020 exam – the use of ‘percentile system’ for preparation of merit list.

We are already aware that the JEE Main January paper is going to be held over several days, and hence many sessions. The question paper in each session is going to be different, and this gives rise to the concern – that the difficulty level of question paper might differ over different sessions. In this situation, some students might get an unfair advantage if they get an easy paper.

To solve this problem, NTA has confirmed that “normalisation” process will be used to calculate percentile score of each candidate, similar to the one already used for calculating result of CAT exam.

What is Percentile Score?

Percentile scores are based on the relative performance of all those candidates who appear for the examination. It shows percentage of candidates who have scores equal to or below a particular candidate. For example, if 500 students take the exam in a session and 400 of them score less than or equal to you, then your score will be 80 percentile.

The formula for calculating percentile is = (number of students with same or less score than the candidate in same session) *100 / (total number of candidates appearing in that session)

Due to this calculation, the topper of each session will get the same percentile of 100 which is the most desirable one.

What is the “normalisation” procedure?

Normalisation is done in following manner:

• First, percentile scores of all students in each session are calculated, to 7 decimal places (this is done to avoid bunching effect and reduce tie breaking)
• A final rank list will be prepared based on all scores
• In case of tie or when the scores of two students are the same, their individual subject scores will be taken into account in the following order – Maths percentile, physics percentile, chemistry percentile, and older age
• Such a list is prepared for both JEE jan and JEE april
• A final list of students is prepared – combining results of JEE Jan and JEE April (best score out of two will be calculated) and seats will be allocated to students accordingly

Note that, all students will be allocated exam date and shift randomly, so that no session has ‘too many high performers’ or ‘too many low performers’. Students will not be able to choose an exam date.

Keeping all this in mind, we have a few suggestions for students who will be attempting JEE 2020:

1. Attempt both tests – there is no reason to not give the test twice, as the best score out of the two attempts will be calculated.
2. Try to give your best shot in the January session – You might be worried that you will not be fully prepared by Jan, but remember that this would be the case with everybody else too – so if you work hard and prepare well, there is a good chance that you will get a high percentile in first attempt
3. Do not take maths lightly – scoring high in maths can get you a better rank in case of a tie. So work hard to maximise your score in maths. But also keep in mind that Maths problems usually take longer. So create your exam strategy while attempting mock papers.

We will soon be releasing some videos on how to score better in jee 2020. Stay tuned and subscribe to our channel here.