‘No NCET raw score or clarity,’ say candidates; NTA explains why

The National Testing Agency (NTA) declared the National Common Entrance Test (NCET) for admission to the 4-Year Integrated Teacher Education Programme (ITEP) — but it missed one detail, the raw score, say candidates. However, the NTA policy states that NCET raw marks will not be given to the candidates if the examination is conducted in multiple shifts.

The NTA conducted the NCET exam on April 29 in two shifts. A total of 77 institutions will offer around 6,100 ITEP seats for qualified candidates. NCET is mandatory for those candidates seeking admission into 4-year ITEP at selected central and state universities, including IITs, NITs, RIEs, and government colleges.

The NTA declared the results for NCET on Tuesday for 44,927 candidates who appeared in the exam. The entrance exam recorded a total of 54,470 registrations this year.

Candidates demand NCET raw score

A candidate replied to NTA’s post on X: “Dear Sir, Thanks for finally releasing the NCET results—better late than never. But you forgot one tiny detail: the actual scores. No raw marks, no overall percentage, no clarity on Score Card. Pls Check it sir.”

Another candidate wrote: “We demand: Raw Scores, Percentile Formula, Clear Counselling Info Stop playing with careers! @NTA_Exams & RT if you agree. Let’s raise our voice together.”

What does NTA say?

Several candidates have raised the same query and demanded the NTA to publish the raw scores for clarity.

However, the NTA has already addressed these questions.

According to the NTA policy, if the exam is conducted in multiple shifts, raw or actual marks secured by the candidates in the different shifts and sessions will be converted into NTA score. “The raw marks will not be given to the candidates if the examination is conducted in multiple shifts,” it said.

The merit list will be prepared by the participating universities, institutions, and government colleges.

Also read ITEP set for exponential growth as 1,400 institutes seek to launch new four-year teacher training course

Who will conduct NCET counselling?

The NTA is responsible for conducting the NCET entrance exam and declaring the results.

“After the declaration of the NCET 2025 result by NTA, the respective Central Universities/ Institutions will declare the counselling/ admission schedule and merit list based on the NCET 2025 score and the other criteria of the respective University,” it said.

It advised candidates to refer to the website of the applied university for all admission-related procedures and queries.

“The selection and admission are subject to fulfilling the admission criteria, eligibility, rank in the merit list, medical fitness, verification of original documents, and such other criteria as may be prescribed by the university,” it added.

NCET 2025 normalisation process

The NCET question paper was conducted in multiple-choice question (MCQ) format. Each question had four options, candidates were required to select one correct or most appropriate answer. Four marks will be awarded for each correct answer, and one mark will be deducted for each incorrect answer. Zero marks for unattempted questions, the marking scheme rule read.

The NTA said that a committee headed by a senior professor from the Indian Statistical Institution Delhi, comprising senior professors from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) and the University of Delhi (DU) had detailed deliberations to arrive at the normalisation methodology for the NCET exam.

The normalisation rule was used in the NCET result declaration as the exam was held in two shifts. Conducting an exam in multiple shifts would mean a difference in the difficulty level. So to ensure equivalence among various question papers and the difficulty level, a normalisation procedure is used.

The NTA was “planning to do the NCET 2025 examination in a single shift so that the need for Normalization will not exist,” as per the information bulletin. However, it was held in two shifts.

Here’s how the NCET NTA score is converted into percentile.

NCET 2025 normalisation method (Source: exams.nta.ac.in/NCET)