When it comes to negative marking, UPSC Prelims are quite similar to other competitive exams. Securing good marks in the prelims is mandatory for qualifying for the mains. Besides tough question papers of the UPSC prelims, negative marking is another factor that makes it harder to qualify for the mains. A UPSC examinee must be aware of the negative marking while appearing for the UPSC exams. Otherwise, he might end up scoring poor marks in the prelims and won’t qualify for the mains.
No matter how many correct answers you have given, all your marks will be deducted for the wrong answers if negative marking is there. That’s why it is important to be conscious of negative marking while answering questions. You can leave a question unanswered if you’re not sure about the right answer to the question. But if you answer it wrong, marks will get deducted from your right answers.
Several websites have published lists of right answers to the questions of the UPSC prelims 2020. If you have appeared for the exam, you can check those answers to assure yourself. Therefore, you can understand how you have performed and what marks you will get.
Are you not familiar with the calculation of marks after negative marking? In such a case, you can use the following methods to calculate your marks in the papers of the UPSC Prelims 2020.
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The way to Calculate Marks of the paper I after Negative marking
The first paper of the UPSC prelims is based on general studies. This one consists of 100 questions of 2 marks, and the duration of the exam is 2 hours. That means you have to correctly answer these 100 questions within 2 hours to secure a good score. Now, let’s come to negative marking. In this paper, 0.66 gets deducted for every wrong answer. In simple words, you will be given two marks for each correct answer, and each wrong answer will deduct 0.66 marks from your total marks. First of all, determine how many answers you have given right. Assume that you have attended all the questions, and you have given eighty right answers. In that case, you will get 160 marks for that. Now, for the twenty wrong answers, 13.2 marks will get deducted from your marks (0.66 gets deducted for each). Hence, your final marks would be 146.8(160-13.2). There will not be any negative marking if you don’t answer a question.
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How Can You Calculate Marks in paper II after Negative Marking?
The second paper of the preliminary exam contains 80 questions of 2.5 works. In this paper, 0.83 marks will be deducted for each wrong answer you give. But negative marking does not apply to the last seven questions of the question paper. That’s why, if you give a wrong answer to any of the questions from question 74 to 80, no marks will be deducted. Now, you can calculate your marks in the second paper, similarly to the first paper.
After calculating the marks in two papers, you should add those to get the total. This is the way how you can calculate your marks in the UPSC prelim exams after negative marking.