Negative Marking – How To Avoid

In MPSC State Services Prelims (Rajyaseva) exam, if you answer 4 questions WRONG then 1 mark will be deducted from your total marks.

Question paper is of 2 hours duration, i.e. 120 minutes. There will be approximately 50 questions on Mental Ability (Buddhimapan) and remaining 150 questions will be on other subjects/topics. You should allot 50 minutes to Buddhimapan related questions because these are time-taking questions; and 70 minutes to questions on other subjects/topics.

This way you will get 60 seconds (1 minute) per question for Buddhimapan questions and 28 seconds (less than half-minute) per question for questions on other subjects/topics.

So, how you can avoid the negative marking while answering your question paper in the examination hall? Here are few tips:

• Have a quick look at the questions, go through complete question paper in 5 minutes and note easy questions that you can answer quickly and can save your valuable time for the difficult questions.
• Start answering easy questions first. If you notice a question is taking up much time (more than 28 seconds or 1 minute, as the case may be), you should not waste your time; so immediately leave that question to take it up in the end and shift to the next easy question. This is called Bookmarking.
• If you are 75% sure of the answer to a question, answer it else leave it; do not guess. This will help you avoid negative marking.
• When all easy questions are answered, go for the difficult questions. If you notice a difficult question is taking up much time (more than 28 seconds or 1 minute, as the case may be), you should not waste your time; so immediately leave that difficult question to take it up in the end and shift to the next difficult question. It means you have bookmarked this question, too.
• After you have answered them, go to the bookmarked questions (easy as well as difficult questions) that you had left earlier to be answered in the end. Answer them if you are sure of the answers. Do not make intelligent guesses, this may result in negative marking. It is always better to be left unanswered than getting penalised for wrong answer(s).

Here are tips that can save you from negative marking. These tips can be applied during your preparation (while you are studying for the examination):

• Practice makes a man perfect: Don’t worry girls, it applies to you, too !!! Ha Ha Ha !!! You should solve as many questions as possible during your mock tests. Try to solve between 10,000 to 30,000 questions. This will make sure that you get enormous chances to reduce your mistakes in the actual examination.
• Exam like environment: During your mock tests, try to solve 200 questions in 120 minutes.  This will give you real-exam-like experience and you will learn to answer questions without any stress.
• Benefits of Mock tests: When you go for mock tests, you learn many new things that you have not seen during your study/preparation. There would be many areas/topics that you may not have even read about. Mock tests will help you know your weakness, mistakes, and you get a better understanding of how to solve different questions.