Joint entrance examinees must score at least 0.33 in each paper in next year’s test to make it to the merit list.

On Saturday, the joint entrance board had decided that candidates who score above zero in mathematics, physics and chemistry would be on the merit list. It clarified on Sunday that “above zero” meant at least 0.33 in each paper.

“Because we have negative marking, 0.33 is the least positive mark a candidate can score in a paper,” said a board member.

This year, the board made JEE multiple-choice questions only — carrying one mark or two marks — and started the system of deducting one-third of the marks allotted to a question if the answer is incorrect. In other words, 0.33 is deducted for a question carrying one mark and 0.66 for one carrying two marks.

A board member explained why 0.33 is the minimum positive marks. “A student who answers a question carrying one mark correctly and another carrying two marks wrongly will score 0.33,” he said.

This year, the JEE merit list comprised everyone who had appeared for the exams. According to board sources, at least 20,000 had scored zero or less.

Counselling, which has gone online from this year, had become drawn-out and chaotic because thousands of students who stood no realistic chance of making it to an engineering college were part of it, said a board source.

“So we have decided to prune the 2013 list. It is the least we can do to arrest the slide in standard,” the board official added.

The board has also decided to upload model questions for all three subjects following a change in the pattern of the test after the split in the physics and chemistry combined paper.

The physics and chemistry papers will be of 75 marks each, comprising 35 one-mark questions and 20 two-mark questions. The 100-mark math paper will have 60 questions carrying one mark and 20 questions carrying two marks.

The board hopes to come out with the model questions a month before the exams, scheduled for April 21 next year. “We hope the model questions will help familiarise the examinees with the changes,” said Bhaskar Gupta, the chairman of the joint entrance examination board.