MCQs negative marking

tipptop1

Hi, just wondering for an mcq exam with 4 possible answers, 2 % for a correct one and -0.5% for a wrong answer, if you ticked all 4 boxes for just a question you didn't know the answer to, would you get 0.5%, instead of leaving it blank and getting nothing??

Thanks in advance.

shruikan2553

Probably not, I'd say if more than 1 box is ticked then it will be marked wrong. Could be wrong but would be very surprised if you could do that

Maldesu

If I remember correctly from mine you just get a wrong answer. Though I never tried it, but that was what they had said.

chriity139

you can only pick 1 answer per question unless otherwise stated if not they just count it as a wrong answer. You may as well just leave the question you dont no blank

bbuzz

tipptop1 wrote: »

Hi, just wondering for an mcq exam with 4 possible answers, 2 % for a correct one and -0.5% for a wrong answer, if you ticked all 4 boxes for just a question you didn't know the answer to, would you get 0.5%, instead of leaving it blank and getting nothing??

Thanks in advance.

No, you can only have one answer per question, otherwise you get -0.5%.

But you're correct in a way, negative marking tries to induce a mean score of 0; so if you guess every answer chances are you'll get 0%.

In this case, those marks would work for a 5 possible answer mcq, but because there's only 4 possible answers the mean score for each question is 0.125 and not 0:

(probability of right answer)x(score of right answer) + (probability of wrong answer)x(score of wrong answer) should = 0

In this case:
(1/4)x(2)+(3/4)x(-0.5)=0.125

Essentially, if you guess every answer on the test you'll get 6.25% overall.