What is normalized score in gate exam?

In the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE), the normalized score is a mechanism used to ensure fairness and comparability among candidates who appear for the same paper in different sessions, as the difficulty level of the question papers can vary across these sessions.

Key Points of GATE Normalization Process

1. Purpose: The normalization process is applied to papers that are conducted in multiple sessions, such as Computer Science and Engineering, Civil Engineering, and others. This ensures that the scores of candidates are comparable despite variations in the difficulty levels of the question papers145.

2. Assumption: The normalization is based on the assumption that "the distribution of abilities of candidates is the same across all sessions" for multi-session papers. This is justified by the large number of candidates and the random allocation of sessions145.

3. Formula: The normalized score is calculated using a specific formula that takes into account the mean and standard deviation of the marks obtained by candidates in different sessions.

   The formula for calculating the normalized mark (( \text{Normalized mark} )) is: [ \text{Normalized mark} = \frac{M{ij} - M{ti}}{M{gq} - M{ti}} \times (M{gq} - M{tq}) + M_{tq} ] Where:

   • ( M_{ij} ): Marks obtained by the student in the session
   • ( M_{ti} ): Average marks of students for one session
   • ( M_{gq} ): Sum of mean and standard deviation for all sessions
   • ( M_{tq} ): Sum of mean and standard deviation for one session145.

4. GATE Score Calculation: After obtaining the normalized marks, the GATE score is calculated using another formula: [ S = S{q} + (S{t} - S{q}) \frac{M - M{q}}{\overline{M}{t} - M{q}} ] Where:

   • ( S ): Score (normalized) of a candidate
   • ( M ): Marks obtained by a candidate (normalized marks for multi-session papers)
   • ( M_{q} ): Qualifying marks for the general category
   • ( \overline{M}_{t} ): Average marks of top 0.1% or top 10 candidates
   • ( S{t} ): Score assigned to ( \overline{M}{t} ) (usually 900)
   • ( S{q} ): Score assigned to ( M{q} ) (usually 350)45.

This process ensures that the scores are fair and reflective of the candidates' abilities, regardless of the session in which they appeared for the exam.