The Madras High Court on Friday asserted that the system of negative marking in competitive examinations like Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) which is conducted by CBSE, needs to be reconsidered and it is considered as “a bolt in the brain development” and it prevents the students from making intelligent guesses.
Due to a petition filed by a candidate S Nelson Prabhakar who appeared for JEE Mains exam under the SC category in 2013 fell short of three marks due to negative marking and could not make it.
The petitioner was not allowed to appear for the JEE examination by the CBSE due to his engineering degree that belonged to a private institute. He moved the court to CBSE, who conducted the exam for reevaluating his physics and mathematics answer sheets and publish the marks to enable him to take up the JEE (Advanced) exam.
Looking at the developed countries who do not follow the system of negative marking to which in their defense CBSE asserted that four marks are given for every correct answer and one mark is deducted with every wrong one.
The petitioner had answered correctly 18 questions, for which he was allotted 72 marks and he had given negative answers for 25 questions, for which 25 marks were deducted and hence he had secured 47 marks, the board said.
Looking at the petitioner statements the judge said, “In the considered opinion of this court, the study materials of the various countries will support the view that negative marking will not help a student to think rationally.”
“In other words, negative marking does not allow a student to develop an element of guessing. Intelligent guessing is an art. “An individual will come across a situation, where he or she has to decide an issue not merely based on his knowledge, but with little guessing,” he observed.
“In a competitive examination, the students come prepared with a varying degree of preparation. As such, when a student is not sure about the answer, he or she attempts to take intelligent guessing,” he said.
“This type of intelligent guessing should be permitted and encouraged, as it would help the students in their future life, whereas, the attempt of CBSE in awarding negative marks would totally eradicate the habit of intelligent guessing,” the judge said.
“Negative marking acts only as a bolt in the brain development of the students,” he said.