6 JEE/NEET Myths That Are Actually Wrong (or Just Outdated)

A lot of JEE/NEET advice gets passed down from senior to junior, coaching batch to coaching batch, without anyone re-checking it against the current actual rule. Some of it was never quite right. Some of it used to be true and quietly stopped being true when a pattern changed. Here are six specific ones, checked.

Myth 1: "Attempting JEE Main's second session is risky if you already did okay in the first"

Reality: this is backwards. NTA automatically takes the better of your two session percentiles for your final rank, not an average, and never the worse one. A weak second attempt cannot pull your first attempt's score down. Attempting the second session is close to a free option: your downside is capped at whatever your best session already earned you.

Myth 2: "Numerical-value questions have no negative marking, so always fill something in"

Reality: this used to be true and stopped being true starting with the 2026 cycle. Numerical questions now carry the same -1 penalty as MCQs, and exam-pattern trackers describe this continuing into 2027 (confirm against the official information bulletin once it's out for your cycle). Either way, the old advice to always guess a numerical because it was risk-free is outdated. A blank numerical costs 0; a wrong guess under the current pattern costs -1, same as a wrong MCQ.

Myth 3: "NTA Score and percentile are two different numbers on your scorecard"

Reality: they're the same number. NTA Score is just the official name for your percentile as shown on the scorecard. There's no separate NTA Score to compare against your percentile. Checking both "to be sure" just shows you the identical figure twice.

Myth 4: "Negative marking means you should basically never guess"

Reality: too broad. A blind, uniformly random guess among 4 MCQ options is worth +0.25 marks on average under the standard +4/-1 scheme, technically positive expected value, not a loss. The real rule is narrower: avoid guessing specifically when your odds of being right sit below about 20%, not as a blanket policy against every unsure question.

Myth 5: "Age or who registered first breaks a JEE Main tie"

Reality: outdated since 2025. Ties are now broken purely by subject scores (Mathematics, then Physics, then Chemistry) followed by accuracy ratio. Age and application number were removed from the criteria entirely. If you've heard otherwise, that advice predates the change.

Myth 6: "You have to pick either AIQ or your State Quota for NEET counselling, not both"

Reality: false. All India Quota (run by MCC) and State Quota (run by your state) are independent processes, and if you're eligible for both, you can apply to both simultaneously. Your standing in one doesn't affect or get reported to the other.

The common thread across most of these: rules genuinely do change, and advice that was accurate two or three years ago can be quietly wrong today without anyone flagging it. When something you're relying on sounds like a fixed rule rather than a strategy, it's worth a five-minute check against the current year's official source before you build your prep around it.