Negative Marking

To be eligible for the post of assistant director in the national savings service Kerala, one must qualify for the Kerala public service commission exams.

The pattern of the public service commission is very simple; candidates are given 100 questions which are to be solved in 1 hour 15 minutes. Just like marks are added for every correct answer during an exam, in certain competitive exams, for every wrong answer, marks are deducted from the total positive score (total score of right answers).

For every correct question, 1 mark is awarded, and for every wrong answer given by the candidate, 0.33 marks are deducted. Candidates can leave the question not attempted, saving them from the deduction of marks.

The negative marking in the public service commission exam is stressful for some people. Candidates who planned to guess the answer from multiple-choice might end up in trouble if their answer was wrong. Instead of adding 1 more mark, they would lose 0.33 marks.

In exams where there is a deduction of marks for every wrong answer, one should only answer the questions that they feel confident about. For example, even if someone scored 80 correct marks but did 20 wrong, 6 valuable marks would be deducted from the total score. From your total score, what was supposed to be 80 becomes 74, which makes your rank in the competitive exam much behind. 

You need to only fill in the answers you can bet on, and do not keep filling answers based on fate. For every 1 wrong answer, you lose 0.33 marks.

Candidates must not try to guess while answering because that will land them in trouble. That would be a risk; even if the candidate wants to take the risk, the risk should be calculated. One must be a little calculative and have a logical approach while taking a guess, and make a confident guess, not just trust your intuition or fate.

Keep a check on your answer because negative marking can end you up in a rank much behind what you could have had.