Negative Marking in JEE and NEET: The Rules and How to Set Them Up in Online Tests

NEET (UG) and JEE (Main) both give +4 for a correct answer, -1 for a wrong one and 0 for a question left blank. In JEE (Main) 2026 the -1 applies to numerical-value questions too, not only to multiple choice. JEE (Advanced) sets its own scheme each year, so read that year's brochure before copying it.

Coaching websites disagree about some of these rules, especially numerical questions in JEE (Main), so everything below comes from the National Testing Agency's own 2026 information bulletins. The second half covers how to set the same rules up in online tests, so your students practise under the scoring they will actually face.

What is the NEET marking scheme?

According to the Information Bulletin for NEET (UG) 2026, the paper has 180 compulsory multiple choice questions, each with four options and one correct or best answer, to be answered in 180 minutes: 45 in Physics, 45 in Chemistry and 90 in Biology, for 720 marks. Marking works like this:

• Correct or most appropriate answer: +4
• Any incorrect option marked: -1
• Unanswered: 0
• If more than one option turns out to be correct, +4 goes to everyone who marked any of the correct options
• If all options turn out to be correct, +4 goes to everyone who attempted the question
• If no option is correct, or the question is wrong or dropped, every candidate gets +4 whether they attempted it or not

The 2026 exam was a single-shift, pen-and-paper test, so students mark an OMR sheet rather than click an option.

What is the JEE Main marking scheme for MCQs and numerical questions?

The Information Bulletin for JEE (Main) 2026 sets out Paper 1 (B.E./B.Tech.) as a computer-based test of three hours. Each of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry has two sections: Section A with 20 multiple choice questions and Section B with 5 questions whose answer is a numerical value. That is 75 questions and 300 marks in all.

• Section A (MCQ): +4 for a correct or most appropriate answer, -1 for an incorrect answer, 0 if unanswered or marked for review without selecting an option
• Section B (numerical value): +4 for a correct answer, -1 for an incorrect answer, 0 if unanswered or marked for review without entering a value
• Section B answers are entered with an on-screen numeric keypad, and the bulletin says the answer should be rounded off to the nearest integer
• A dropped MCQ or numerical question gives +4 to every candidate who appeared in that shift

The bulletin is explicit: "There will be negative marking for Section B." If a guide or a student tells you numerical questions are safe to guess, it is out of date for 2026. The rules have changed in past years, so check the bulletin on jeemain.nta.nic.in each time a new one is published.

How does JEE Advanced marking work?

JEE (Advanced) is conducted by the IITs, not the NTA, and it publishes its own information brochure each year on jeeadv.ac.in. Its question types and marking, including partial marks on some question types, have changed from year to year. We are not going to quote a scheme here, because any fixed description will be wrong for some year. If you run an Advanced batch, take the marking scheme from the current brochure and from the instructions printed on the most recent paper, and check it again when the next brochure comes out.

Is it worth guessing under -1 negative marking?

This is the arithmetic students should learn early. On a four-option MCQ marked +4 and -1, a completely blind guess is right one time in four. Over four such guesses that is one right answer (+4) and three wrong ones (-3), a gain of one mark, or 0.25 per question on average. Eliminate one option with confidence and the average gain rises to about 0.67 per question; eliminate two and it is 1.5.

The numerical questions in JEE (Main) are different. There are no options to choose from, so a blind guess is almost always wrong and almost always costs one mark. Students should only enter a numerical answer they have actually worked out.

Averages hide risk, and a student who guesses on twenty questions can still have a bad day. The useful lesson is not "always guess" but "eliminate first, then decide", and that habit only forms if every practice paper uses the real marking.

Should your practice tests use negative marking?

• Full-length mocks: always, with exactly the exam's scheme, so students practise the attempt-or-skip decision under real stakes
• Timed part tests: yes, for the same reason
• First-pass chapter practice: optional. Some institutes set the wrong-answer mark to zero so students attempt everything and teachers see what the class really knows. If you do, tell students, and switch it back on for anything timed.

How do you set up negative marking in The Academix?

On each question

Every question in the question bank has two marks fields: Correct Marks and Incorrect Marks. For NEET and JEE (Main) you enter 4 and 1. The incorrect mark is typed as a plain number and is always deducted, so there is no risk of someone entering -1 and accidentally adding a mark. It starts at 0, which means no negative marking until you set it. Because the marks belong to the question, one test can mix questions with different marking.

Multiple choice questions also have a Partially Correct Marks field, which cannot be more than the correct marks. On a question with more than one correct option, a student who picks some of the correct options and none of the wrong ones receives that figure; picking any wrong option makes the answer wrong, and the incorrect mark is deducted. The partial mark is one fixed number per question, not a sliding scale per option, so it will not reproduce every partial-marking scheme exactly. If you are copying a specific scheme, set up a sample question in a practice test and check the result before using it on a real paper.

In bulk

The sample Excel sheet on the Import Question screen has columns for marks, negative marks and partial marks next to each question, so a whole bank arrives with its marking set. Questions pulled out of a scanned paper by AI extraction appear as editable cards with Marks, Negative Marks and Partial Marks fields, which a teacher checks before pressing Add Questions.

In an automated pool

If you build a test with Automated Pool instead of picking questions by hand, each rule has its own Quantity, Marks/Question, Partial Marks and Incorrect Marks. That lets you set +4 and -1 for a whole topic in one place, whatever marks the individual questions carry in the bank.

For numerical-value questions

Use the Fixed Answer question type: the student types a value and it is compared with the answer key as text, ignoring capital letters. That means "5" and "5.0" are treated as different answers. Follow the JEE (Main) convention and tell students to enter whole numbers, and write the answer key the same way.

Checking the result

After a test, the Report tab splits each student's paper into correct, incorrect and skipped questions with the marks for each, so the marks lost to wrong answers are visible to the student and the teacher. For real tests you can hold results back instead of releasing them immediately, which gives a teacher time to check the answer key before anyone sees a score.