Negative Marking Calculator
Many competitive exams deduct a fraction of a question's marks for every wrong answer, which means your final score is not simply "correct answers × marks per question" — wrong guesses actively cost you. This calculator works out your final score from your correct, wrong, and unattempted counts, using either a common preset fraction (1/3, 1/4, 1/2) or a custom fraction you enter directly. For example, with 1 mark per question and a 1/3 penalty, 80 correct and 20 wrong out of 100 questions gives 80 − (20 × 1/3) ≈ 73.33 marks, not 80.
Negative marking deducts a fraction of a question's marks for every wrong answer, to discourage random guessing — an unattempted question is simply worth zero, with no penalty. A 1/3 penalty (losing one-third of a mark for a 1-mark question) is common on several competitive exams, while a 1/4 penalty is used elsewhere — verification flag: the exact fraction is set per exam and can differ by section within the same exam, so confirm the fraction your specific exam uses in its notification rather than assuming from this general pattern.
Which exams use which negative marking fraction?
A 1/3 penalty is used on several competitive exams, and 1/4 on others — some exams use no negative marking at all, and a few vary the fraction by section within the same paper. Verification flag: we have not compiled a confirmed, exam-by-exam fraction table here, since this figure is set per exam and can be revised between notification cycles — check exam requirements for any exam-specific pages we've verified, and always confirm the exact fraction (and whether it varies by section) in your specific exam's current notification.