Setu Vinit Goenka v. National Testing Agency & Anr.

1. This is a petition by a student who is undertaking the JEE (Main) examination for entrance into the various Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

2. The examination was conducted on 27 January 2024 and the result was declared on 12 February 2024. It may be noted that, as per the scheme of IIT JEE Examination, two attempts are provided to every student to attempt the JEE (Main) examination, one held in January, the other held in April 2024, and the better of the two scores is taken.

3. The candidate who manages, on basis of the better of the two scores, to make the grade vis-à-vis her or his peers, has then to attempt the JEE (Advanced) examination for which, too, two attempts are permitted and the better of the two is taken.

4. It is on this basis that the aspirants who seek to enter the hallowed portals of the various IITs obtain entry.

5. In order to ensure that there is complete transparency, it is not possible to provide the same question paper to all candidates in the country, who, I am told, numbered over 12 lakhs this year. As a result, there is a possibility that there may be varying levels of difficulty of question papers. In order to counter-balance this possibility, the JEE follows a normalisation procedure, which is set out in detail in Appendix V to the Information Bulletin applicable to the IIT JEE examination, which may be reproduced in full thus: “Procedure to be adopted for compilation of NTA scores for multisession Papers (Normalization procedure based on PERCENTILE SCORE) NTA may conduct examinations on multiple dates, generally in two sessions per day. The candidates will be given different sets of questions per session and it is quite possible that in spite of all efforts to maintain equivalence among various question papers, the difficulty level of these question papers administered in different sessions may not be exactly the same. Some of the candidates may end up attempting a relatively tougher set of questions when compared to other sets. The candidates who attempt the comparatively tougher examination are likely to get lower marks as compared to those who attempt the easier one. In order to overcome such a situation, a “Normalization procedure based on Percentile Score” will be used to ensure that candidates are neither benefitted nor disadvantaged due to the difficulty level of the examination. With the objective of ensuring that a candidate’s true merit is identified and that a level playing field is created in the above context, the Normalization Procedure, set out below shall be adopted, for compiling the NTA scores for multi-session papers. The process of Normalization is an established practice for comparing candidate scores across multi-session papers and is similar to those being adopted in other large educational selection tests conducted in India. For normalization across sections, NTA shall use the percentile equivalence. Percentile Scores: Percentile scores are scores based on the relative performance of all those who appear for the examination. The marks obtained are transformed into a scale ranging from 100 to 0 for each session of examinees. The Percentile Score indicates the percentage of candidates that have scored EQUAL TO OR BELOW (same or lower raw scores) that particular Percentile in that examination. Therefore the topper (highest score) of each session will get the same Percentile of 100 which is desirable. The marks obtained in between the highest and lowest scores are also converted to appropriate Percentiles. The Percentile score will be the Normalized Score for the examination (instead of the raw marks of the candidate) and shall be used for the preparation of the merit lists. The Percentile Scores will be calculated up to 7 decimal places to avoid the bunching effect and reduce ties. The Percentile score of a Candidate is calculated as follows: 100 X Number of candidates appeared in the ‘Session’ with raw score EQUAL TO OR LESS than the candidate The total number of the candidates who appeared in the ‘Session’ Note: The Percentile of the Total shall NOT be an aggregate or average of the Percentile of the individual subject. The percentile score is not the same as the percentage of marks obtained. Example: Suppose a test was held in 4 sessions of examinees as per details given below: (Allocation of Days and shifts was done randomly) (a) The distribution of candidates was as follows: Session-1: Day-1 Shift-1, Session-2: Day-1 Shift-2, Session-3: Day-2 Shift-1 and Session[4]: Day-2 Shift-2 Session Day/Shift No. of Candidates Marks Absent Appeare d Total High est Lowes t Session-1 Day-1 Shift 3974 28012 31986 335 -39 Session-2 Day -1 Shift 6189 32541 38730 346 -38 Session-3 Day 2 Shift 6036 41326 47362 331 -49 Session-4 Day 2 Shift 9074 40603 49677 332 -44 Total (Session-1 to Session-4) 25273 142482 167755 346 -49 In this method of scoring the HIGHEST RAW SCORE in each paper (irrespective of the raw scores) will be the 100 Percentile indicating that 100% of candidates have scored equal to or lesser than the highest scorer/ topper for that session. Highest Raw Score and Percentile Score: All the highest raw scores will have a normalized Percentile Score of 100 for their respective session. Session Total candidate & appeared Highest Raw Score Candidates who scored EQUAL OR LESS THAN Highest Raw Score Percentil e Score Remarks Session-1 28012 335 28012 100.0000 [(28012/2

8012) *100] i.e. all the highest raw scores would be normalized to 100 percentile Score for their respective session. Session-2 32541 346 32541 100.0000 [(32541/3

2541) *100] Session-3 41326 331 41326 100.0000 [(41326/4

1326) *100] Session-4 40603 332 40603 100.0000 [(40603/4

0603) *100] Lowest Raw Score and Percentile Score: The percentile Score of all the lowest raw scores will depend on the total number of candidates who have taken the examination for their respective sessions. Session Total candidates appeared Lowest Raw Score Candidat es who scored EQUAL OR LESS THAN Lowest Raw Score Percentile Score Remarks Session-1 28012 -39 1 0.0035699 [(1/28012) *100] i.e. score of all the lowest raw scores is different i.e. score depends on the total number of candidate s who have taken the examinati on for their respective sessions Session-2 32541 -38 1 0.0030730 [(1/32541) *100] Session-3 41326 -49 1 0.0024198 [(1/41326) *100] Session-4 40603 -44 1 0.0024629 [(1/40603) *100] The following is a further explanation of the interpretation of the raw scores and Percentile Score in Session-3 (Day-2 and Shift-1) with 41326 candidates who have taken the examination. Candidate Percentile Score No. of candidate s Raw Score Remark A 100.0000000 [(41326/41326) *100] 1 331 This indicates that amongst those who appeared, 100% have scored either EQUAL TO LESS THAN candidate A (331 raw scores) It also indicates that no candidate has scored more than candidate A (331 raw scores) B 90.1224411 [(37244/41326) *100] 77 121 This indicates that amongst those who appeared, 90.1224411 % have scored either EQUAL TO OR LESS THAN candidate B (121 raw scores) It also indicates that the remaining have scored more than candidate B (121 raw scores) C 50.4549194 [(20851/41326) *100] 381 41 This indicates that amongst those who appeared, 50.4549194 EQUAL TO OR LESS THAN candidate C (41 raw scores) It also indicates that the remaining those who appeared more than candidate C (41 raw scores) D 31.7040120 [(13102/41326) *100] 789 25 This indicates that amongst those who appeared, 31.7040120 EQUAL TO OR LESS THAN candidate D (25 raw scores) It also that the remaining more than candidate D (25 raw scores) E 1.1034216 [(456/41326) *100] 100 -15 Indicates that amongst those who appeared, 1.1034216 EQUAL TO OR LESS THAN candidate E (-15 raw score) It also indicates that the remaining more than candidate E (-15 raw score)

STEP-BY-STEP PROCEDURE FOR NORMALIZATION

AND PREPARATION OF RESULT: Step-1: Distribution of Examinees in two shifts: Candidates have to be distributed into two sessions randomly so that each session has an approximately equal number of candidates. These two sessions would be as follows: Session-1: Day-1 Shift-1, Session-2: Day-1 Shift-2 In the event of a more number of days or less number of shifts, the candidates will be divided accordingly. This will ensure that there is no bias in the distribution of candidates who shall take the examination. Further, with a large population of examinees spread over the entire country, the possibility of such bias becomes remote. Step 2: Preparation of Results for each Session: The examination results for each session will be prepared in the form of  Raw Scores  Percentiles Scores of Total raw scores. The Percentiles would be calculated for each candidate in the Session as follows: Let TP[1] be the Percentile Score of the Total Raw Score of that candidate Total Percentil e (TP[1]): 100 X No. of candidates appeared from the session with raw score EQUAL TO OR LESS than the score of the Candidate