Types of OMR Sheets

Optical Mark Recognition sheets also known as OMR sheets use different form of paper that has index points on its four corners. OMR sheets are used in the examination where numbers of candidates are large and manual checking is waste of time and resources. OMR sheets are scanned and results are displayed within no time. There is no need to check each and every answer. Apart from answer sheets, OMR forms are also available. These forms are used for collecting data and are available in the form of application forms, admission forms, ballot papers, attendance sheets, questionnaires, etc.

Types of OMR Sheets:

The classification depends on the purpose of the examination.

• Multi-choice questions (MCQ test sheets) : These sheets are used by schools, colleges, universities and examination centres. They may have different types of blocks, some of which include alphabetic block, numerical (and integer) block, column matching block, column matrix, ABCD block, etc.
• Collecting Data : These are used for admission forms, application forms, feedback forms, questionnaires, etc. Such types of OMR sheets have multiple blocks. Apart from OMR blocks, you will also find OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition) blocks. Such forms can have blocks for photos, handwritten content and barcode too.
• Special purposes: Used for attendance sheets, ballot sheets, award or mark sheets, etc.

The OMR sheets can be categorized as per the design and printing process too.

Coloured : Coloured sheets are used when old technology OMR reading machines are used. It requires thick coloured paper. Generally, two colours – Orange or Red is used for the sheet. It has accurate form of checking because marks made by the candidate on the bubbles can be easily detected even if it is very light.

Black and White : With the advancement in the technology, it is no longer necessary to use coloured OMR sheets. One can print the black and white OMR sheets on normal A4 sized white paper. Even photocopies of these sheets are used.

Bar-coded: The bar-coded OMR sheets are usually used to mask candidate information like unique ID or roll number. This is mostly used to avoid misplacement of sheets or duplication of answers.

Two-sided: Two sided OMR sheets contain fields on both sides of the paper. This is used when all the questions cannot be fit into one side of the sheet.

Other forms: The other types of OMR sheets include lithocode, foldable, carbonless, detachable, etc. The lithocode OMR sheets are used as a substitute for barcoded sheets, while the folded sheets are used to make sure that the sheets do not get damaged during transportation. Carbonless sheets have two sheets, one is original which has to be submitted at the end of the exam and the other is a copy which can be retrieved by the student. Detachable OMR sheets are also called 2 part OMR sheets and are used to hide the identity of the students from the evaluators in case of confidential tests or exams.

Traditionally, the OMR sheets are printed on thick sheets of paper and possess a timeline in the place of index points. These have to be scanned at a high resolution for accurate results. The best thing is that such sheets can be read by the Addmen OMR software. However, you no longer need to use such sheets for examinations. With the Addmen OMR sheets, designing, printing, scanning and using OMR sheets has become easy and cost effective.