10 Tips on How to Use and Shade OMR Sheets properly for your Exams

What is an OMR sheet?

According to webopedia.com, OMR is Short for optical mark recognition, the technology of electronically extracting intended data from marked fields, such as checkboxes and fill-infields, on printed forms. OMR technology scans a printed form and reads predefined positions and records where marks are made on the form. 

OMR scanner

The OMR scanner reads and scans the portions that are shaded. Because of this fact, it is advisable to shade properly so as to enable the scanner to get your exact details. 

Below are some tips to guide you as to how to fill and handle the OMR to avoid it not being scanned.

1) Read the instructions properly before you begin your shading

2) Use Only HB Pencils so that the scanner can capture what you have shaded

3) Never shade with a pen - When you shade with a pen, the Scanner sees it as errors and will leave it blank.

4) Do not write or shade on the Margins - This instruction is usually given not to shade on the margins. Whenever you shade or write on the margins, the scanner gives an error message because what you have shaded on the margin will be stopping the scanner from reading your OMR.

5)  Do not write on the edge of the OMR as it will disrupt the scanning process

6) Make sure you shade each alphabet of  your name on a separate column

7) Make sure the edges of your OMR sheet is neatly detached. 

8) Do not use mutilated or sqeezed OMR sheets as the scanner will reject it.

9) Never shade more than one answer for a question. Some people tend to want to shade two answers thinking that the scanner will choose the correct one. This is totally wrong! The scanner will simply put a question mark for that question and mark it wrong.

10) Most importantly, ensure that your name and exam number is correctly and neatly shaded as this will be the determinant of whether you get a score or not.

you can get more tips on http://walemicaiah.blog.com/2012/03/19/handling-your-answer-sheet-shading-paper/