If you thought that the pre-board papers this year have not been following the current CBSE board pattern, well, CBSE Class 12th board examination is set to shock you even more.
Not to scare the class 12th students of CBSE but as a matter of fact, the board is set to change their exam pattern this year with more application-based questions rather than objective ones.
As a result, CBSE Board Exam Is Tougher.
Students discussing exams
So, earlier if you used to be happy at the idea of short-answer questions of 2-3 marks each, you have to settle your scores with lengthy answers as most subjects will now have more of long-answer questions and the ones with fewer marks and shorter answers are being lessened in numbers in the exam paper. If you are in the commerce stream and your subjects are business studies, accounts, economics and political science, you might consider this as good news: there has been a considerable reduction in the number of questions as seen in the sample papers that some students have attempted in the recent days.
While there are only five one and two mark questions each unlike the previous case of 10 questions each, the Political Science paper includes only 27 questions against 31 questions earlier and the Business Studies exam sheet is to have 25 questions instead of the 30 questions it used to have earlier. Even Mathematics paper will have less number of questions this year as against 29 questions earlier; there will be only 26 questions now. The six-marker questions that earlier had a choice will now have none and as many as they are, these lengthy questions will have to be answered in the paper.
Exam in progress
While the lengthy answer questions are something the university teachers find their affinity to, school teachers feel that the amount of counselling before Boards, as well as the continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) system that has been in practice all these years will not be effective anymore, if such abrupt changes are to mark the Central Board exam pattern. The school teachers are also concerned about the performance of the students who take time to understand concepts for this exam pattern as one’s thinking skills and abilities are put to test in such a format. The accountancy sample papers also tested students for Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) which are mostly based on application questions (50% of the paper) and not on reproducing exactly what is given in the textbook on the answer sheet. Even the Business Studies sample paper mostly comprised of such questions (70%) that need more of analysis and maybe an elaborate explanation in answers.
Even subjects like Chemistry and Economics will be having application-based questions in the Boards. In the Economics paper, there will be eight six-markers instead of six. Even one-marker and three marker questions have been deducted from 10 to eight. While school teachers have been preparing their students on such questions now, especially through the internal exams so that they can think better during the boards, the difficulty levels are on a raise now and students who find it difficult to grasp academic concepts and subjects will find it hard to crack the nut of Board exam.
Students preparing for exam
Now the CBSE Board will be testing students more on the basis of their answers to interdisciplinary and thought-provoking questions rather than direct questions studied and learnt aggressively throughout the school years. However, as some school principals insist, everything is within the course curriculum and the changes were a part of the course curriculum documents issued last year.
Consequently, scoring in the Boards will be tougher this year starting March 2. By the end, that is, April 20, 2015, students already performing well will have better insights in their subjects and others having weaker understanding and assimilating power for academics will try to add up marks in all the papers to find out how their performance has been in entirety.
Some schools that have incorporated this exam pattern in pre-boards have come up with the result that not many can score in the 90’s range in the Boards if they do not apply their thinking and evaluation powers to the best possible limits during the exam.
Apparently, the CBSE board had been planning to change their exam pattern and thus the learning methods of the students since long from one based on rote learning process to something more conceptual, analytical, experimenting and exploratory in nature.
As only a month is left for the Boards and premier colleges need high cut-off marks, the anxiety and stress levels among higher secondary students is sure to rise with these sudden alterations. However, keeping in mind the fact that this system change is only for the general good of the students especially in the long run and also for the generations to come, CBSE might just be paving the way for a better future and lesser stress to learn theoretical concepts by heart.
All the very Best!
Students in exam
