JEE Main 2026 Normalisation Explained: Process, formula and FAQs

The National Testing Agency, NTA, generally conducts the Joint Entrance Examination, JEE Main, in two shifts every day. The candidates get different sets of questions as NTA prepares one question paper per shift. It can't be ruled out that in spite of all efforts to maintain equivalence among various question papers, the difficulty level of question papers can be different. This results in some candidates ending up solving a relatively tougher set of questions, as compared to other sets. Therefore, if no normalisation process is followed, candidates who attempt the comparatively tougher paper are likely to get lower marks as compared to those who attempt the easier one. JEE Main 2026 result LIVE.

To make sure that this discrepancy never happens, NTA follows a normalization procedure based on percentile score. As mentioned, it ensure that candidates are neither benefitted nor disadvantaged due to the difficulty level of the particular set or question paper they get.

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Normalization is a standard method used to compare candidates’ scores across multiple shifts and is similar to practices followed in other major entrance exams in India. For this, NTA uses percentile equivalence to ensure fairness across shifts.

Percentile score means how well you did compared to other students in your exam shift. It shows the percentage of students who secured equal or lesser marks than you. Marks are changed into a scale from 0 to 100 to make comparison fair for all shifts. The highest scorer in each shift gets 100 percentile. These percentile scores, not raw marks, are used to prepare the final result and rank list. NTA, in its official bulletin has specified that 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 ‘Shift’ with raw score EQUAL TO OR LESS than the candidate divided by the total number of the candidates who appeared in the ‘Shift’

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.

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FAQs around normalisation

How are the highest raw score and percentiles normalised?

In each exam shift, the highest raw score is normalised by assigning it a percentile of 100 because percentile is calculated based on how many candidates scored equal to or less than a candidate in that shift; for the top scorer, all candidates fall in this category, so the formula becomes (total candidates ÷ total candidates) × 100, which equals 100, meaning that regardless of the actual highest raw marks (such as 335, 346, 331, or 332), every shift’s top scorer is standardized to 100 percentile to enable fair comparison across different shifts.

Why does the lowest percentile vary across shifts?

In each shift, the percentile score for the lowest raw score is calculated based on how many candidates scored equal to or less than that score, which is usually just one candidate (the lowest scorer), so the formula becomes (1 ÷ total candidates in that shift) × 100; because this denominator changes from shift to shift, the lowest percentile is different for every shift.

How is the NTA percentile calculated in each shift?

In NTA exams, candidates are first divided randomly into different shifts to ensure equal distribution and avoid bias. Each shift may have different question papers, so results are first calculated separately for each shift in terms of raw marks and percentile scores. The percentile shows how a candidate performed compared to others in the same shift. Then, these shift-wise percentiles are combined to form the final NTA score, which is used for ranking and admission.

What if JEE Main cut-off differ across shifts?

To ensure fairness, if cut-off percentiles differ across shifts, the lowest cut-off is considered for all shifts so that no candidate is disadvantaged due to shift variation.