No negative marking in medical entrance

Students can now hope to breathe a sigh of relief with the Medical Council of India (MCI) deciding to do away with the system of negative marking from the proposed National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) from 2012 onwards. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Union Health Ministry,MCI and other stake-holders in New Delhi on Monday evening.

Rajiv Yervadekar,member,the MCI’s board of governors,said,“At the meeting it was decided that negative marking will be done away with as decided by the National Board of Examinations. Instead,the percentile system of marking will be introduced for all medical colleges that are governed by Medical Council of India. Also for some states,question papers are likely to be printed in the vernacular languages too,though a final decision is yet to be taken on it.”

The details of all the new decisions would be put up on the MCI website in a day or two,added Yervadekar.

Students seem to be happy with the decision.

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“It is really a welcome change. Till now students would lose one mark for every wrong answer,” said Pravin Shinde,a Class XII student from a Pune school.

“As a result,at times even if we knew the correct answer,we would be scared to risk losing a mark and end up not answering the question at all.”