Understand
Normalization Explainer
Why your CUET marks are not your score, and how NTA equates results across exam shifts — worked through with your own numbers.
Why marks are normalised
question papers in different shifts differ, so difficulty may not be the same and raw scores across shifts are not directly comparable. NTA therefore converts raw scores to NTA scores using the Equi-percentile method, designed by a committee headed by a Senior Professor from the Indian Statistical Institute Delhi, with Senior Professors from IIT Delhi and the University of Delhi.
The three steps
- Step 1 — Convert raw scores into percentile scores, calculated separately for each shift. Formula: P = (m × 100) / N, where N is the number of candidates in the shift and m the number whose raw score is less than or equal to the candidate's.
- Step 2 — Pull the percentiles back to the marks scale of each session: collate all shifts into one table sorted by percentile, keeping each shift's raw-score column separate. blank raw-score entries are filled using linear interpolation between the neighbouring percentiles of that shift.
- Step 3 — The normalised score for a percentile is the average of the raw scores corresponding to that percentile in each of the sessions.
Try it with a small example
Two shifts of the same subject. Edit any raw score and watch the percentiles and normalised scores update. This mirrors the bulletin's illustration with six candidates, not the real computation over lakhs of candidates.
| Candidate | Percentile | Raw score — Shift 1 | Raw score — Shift 2 | Normalised score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A (Shift 1) | 100.00 | 180.0 | 150.0 | 165.0 |
| D (Shift 2) | 100.00 | 180.0 | 150.0 | 165.0 |
| B (Shift 1) | 66.67 | 120.0 | 100.0 | 110.0 |
| E (Shift 2) | 66.67 | 120.0 | 100.0 | 110.0 |
| C (Shift 1) | 33.33 | 60.0 | 40.0 | 50.0 |
| F (Shift 2) | 33.33 | 60.0 | 40.0 | 50.0 |
Shift 2 is the harder one here: the same rank inside it comes with a lower raw mark, so the normalised score pulls that shift’s candidates up.
How to read the result
- the highest raw score in every session becomes percentile 100 for that session.
- the lowest raw scores in different sessions get different percentiles, because the percentile depends on how many candidates took that session.
- A candidate keeps their percentile; the normalised score is the average raw mark that percentile corresponds to across all shifts — so a hard shift's marks are lifted and an easy shift's marks are pulled down.
What this explainer does not tell you
- Your actual normalised score. That needs every candidate's raw score in every shift, which NTA alone holds.
- Whether a given university uses the normalised score, the percentile or the raw score for admission. Each university's admission policy decides that.