How is the cut off decided in an entrance exam? || panchayat secretary/VRO/Group-4 cut off marks
Channel: eGURUm TV
Date: 13/09/2018

Any entrance or competitive exam is totally different from any other exam you would have faced in your schools. In school and board exams, you just compete with yourself to fetch good marks but when it comes to an entrance or competitive exams, you compete with thousands or lakhs of other students. In school or board exams, your result depends on the fact how much effort you have put in, but in entrance exams, your success depends on the fact How many people are behind you in that particular exam!!

For example,

You appear for your board exams and target to get an overall 90%. Your success will depend on the facts, how much laborious you are, your way of preparation, etc. Now if you labor hard and get 90%, that will be your success!!
BUT,
When you appear for JEE, and for example you are targeting IIT-D, no doubt you would to fight with lacs of other students who also want to fetch a seat there. But that you need to defeat them and fetch yourself a seat there. The success in any entrance or competitive exam not only depends on your efforts or how much laborious you are BUT it also depends on the factor how much serious and laborious they are. In CAT(Entrance for IIMs), the percentile is calculated by calculating the percentage of students who appeared for CAT are behind you. 
For example, Just imagine that you appear for CAT and score a decent 70% marks in that exam and you are the top scorer too, Your percentile will be 100 percentile because all other students who appeared for that exam other than you are behind you in terms of marks.

In short,
In school or entrance exams, You compete with yourself only to achieve success BUT in an entrance and competitive exams, you compete with others appearing for the same exam to make it a success.
I hope the whole process is clear now!!
Don't hesitate to knock me for any further clarification!! :-)
Cutoffs are nothing but the marks obtained by the last student being declared qualified. 
How is the cut off decided in an entrance exam? || panchayat secretary/VRO/Group-4 cut off marks

To make it more clear, let's take an example. 

Suppose 1000 students sit in an exam. The number of students which need to be called for counseling is supposed 500. Now, A rank list is prepared on the basis of total marks obtained. The marks of the 500th student are taken as the cutoff. 
How is the cut off decided in an entrance exam? || panchayat secretary/VRO/Group-4 cut off marks

For subject-wise cutoffs, the least marks obtained by any of the students among the list of qualified students( top 500 in this example) is taken as the subject cutoff for that individual subject.
How is the cut off decided in an entrance exam? || panchayat secretary/VRO/Group-4 cut off marks