CET की OMR में पाँचवाँ गोला E — नियम, कटौती और तुक्के का गणित

The fifth circle on the CET OMR sheet — what option E does to your score

Both 2026 CETs put five circles on every question, with E meaning 'not attempted'. Here is what a blank costs, where the disqualification line sits, and the arithmetic that decides when a guess beats E.

The CET answer sheet is not the OMR sheet most candidates have filled before. Every question carries five circles, not four, and the fifth one is not an answer. That single change rewrites attempt strategy, so it is worth working through with the actual numbers.

The rule is identical on both 2026 papers — page 24 of advertisement 09/2026 for the Graduation level, page 22 of advertisement 08/2026 for the Senior Secondary level.

What the fifth circle says

A, B, C and D are answers. E means "I did not attempt this question." It is never the correct option; it is how you tell the board that a blank row was deliberate. The rule comes in three parts:

• A question with none of the five circles darkened loses one-third of that question's marks.
• 10 extra minutes are given after the scheduled time so that E can be darkened on unattempted questions.
• A candidate who leaves more than 10% of questions with no circle darkened is disqualified.

What one circle is worth

Both papers state that all questions carry equal marks: 300 marks over 150 questions at the Graduation level, 240 over 120 at the Senior Secondary level. Both work out to 2 marks a question. Negative marking is one-third of a question's marks, so a mistake costs two-thirds of a mark — 0.67 to two places — on either paper — and one table covers both exams:

The disqualification line

These are the two numbers to carry into the hall:

• Graduation, 150 questions — 10% is 15. More than 15 questions with no circle darkened and the candidate is disqualified.
• Senior Secondary, 120 questions — 10% is 12. More than 12 and the candidate is disqualified.

Blanks are not free below the line either. Fifteen blank questions on the Graduation paper cost 15 × 0.67 = 10 marks; twelve on the Senior Secondary paper cost 8 marks. Darkening E on those same questions costs nothing at all. On neither paper is there any situation in which an empty row beats an E.

When a guess beats E

E is worth exactly zero, so the only question ever on the table is whether a guess is worth more than zero. The arithmetic:

(0.25 × 2) − (0.75 × 0.67) = 0.5 − 0.5 = 0. A blind guess and an E are worth the same on average; the guess only adds swing.

• Four options still live (no idea whatsoever) — one time in four you get +2, three times in four you lose 0.67.
• One option ruled out, three live — (0.33 × 2) − (0.67 × 0.67) = 0.67 − 0.44 = +0.22 a question.
• Two ruled out, a coin flip — (0.5 × 2) − (0.5 × 0.67) = 1 − 0.33 = +0.67 a question.

So the working rule is short: if you can eliminate even one option, darken a circle. If you can eliminate nothing, it makes no difference on average — mark E and move on. The one thing never to do is leave the row untouched, because that is the only choice that both deducts marks and counts toward disqualification.

The last ten minutes

The extra ten minutes exist for exactly one job: darkening E on the questions you did not attempt. They are not solving time. In practice that means planning a final sweep — run down the sheet and put an E in every row that has no circle. The habit is easiest to build by practising on the same sheet, which is why the tests in our CET Graduation and CET Senior Secondary courses run on the five-option rule with this deduction applied.

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