SPPU OEE Exam Pattern: 100 Marks, Sections A and B, Negative Marking

Savitribai Phule Pune University fills the master's programmes in its own campus departments — Ganeshkhind plus the sub-centres listed in its notification, not its hundreds of affiliated colleges — through the Online Entrance Examination (OEE). It is often searched as the "SPPU PG entrance" or "Pune University entrance exam", and it is not one paper: every programme sets its own 100-mark test from its own syllabus. This guide explains the rules that are the same for all of them, the details that differ, and the one thing no official document settles — whether negative marking was applied in 2026.

SPPU OEE notifications 2025 and 2026.

The practical point: if the ¼ rule is applied, a two-mark question costs half a mark when you get it wrong (a quarter of two) and gains two when you get it right — the same ratio as a one-mark question, but each decision matters twice as much. SPPU does not say how many options each question has. If there are four, a ¼ penalty makes guessing break even at a one-in-five hit rate, so even a blind guess gains slightly on average (1 in 4 right) and a guess after eliminating one option gains clearly; the penalty mainly punishes confident wrong answers. In a 50-question paper you also have 2.4 minutes a question, which is time to eliminate options properly.

Both the 2025 and 2026 notifications carry the same sentence — a quarter of the question's marks off for each wrong answer, "wherever relevant". The 2025 PG schedule letter was blunter: "The examination is of 100 marks and it is based on negative marking system." The 2026 revised schedule says only that the examination "is of 100 marks", and the 2026 Anthropology syllabus still prints the ¼ rule.

The merit lists add a puzzle. In the 2025 lists we read, totals run in quarter marks (.25, .75) and even go below zero — the Chemistry list's lowest total was −2 — which is exactly what a ¼ deduction produces. In the 2026 lists with a text layer, every one of about 2,850 scores is a whole number. That is consistent with no deduction being applied in 2026 — but no 2026 document says so. The safe assumption for 2027 is the one the notification states: a quarter off per wrong answer. The calculator below lets you see both.

In 2026 the two official documents disagree, and the later one governs. The notification said the OEE "will be conducted on Centre base online mode". The revised schedule of 5 June 2026 changed it: "Online Human Proctored Mode", with candidates logging in "from a convenient location" on a "Mobile phone, laptop, PC, Tab, I-pad with working front camera". A mock (demo) test on 9–10 June was mandatory. In 2025 the PG OEE was also home-based: "online Proctored Mode (Home base)", on Moodle, with a mandatory mock test on 28–30 May. So for two years running the PG OEE has been taken from home — but the 2027 mode will only be known from the 2027 notification and schedule.

If it is home-based again, the practical risks are technical, not academic: a front camera that works, a stable connection for two hours, and a quiet room. Take the mock test seriously — it is where a proctoring or login problem shows up while there is still time to fix it.