Central Board Secondary Education Examinations

Central Board Secondary Education Examinations

Examinations to have new streamlined features

Students appearing for the Central Board of Secondary Education examinations will no longer need to attach supplementary sheets as the Board has increased the number of pages in the answer-books for Classes XII and X from this year.

“The pages in the main answer-books have been increased from 40 to 48 for Class XII and from 32 to 40 for Class X. Students invariably ask for supplementary sheets and this interrupts their concentration and writing flow. It also involves signing of supplementary sheets by invigilators which is time-consuming”, said CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly at a press conference here on Wednesday.

Internal Assessment

Mr. Ganguly also spoke about internal assessment in mathematics, restructured science practicals and revised scheme of its evaluation that would come into effect for Class X from March. Internal assessment in mathematics will be 20 per cent that will be awarded on the basis of performance of students in mainly three aspects – evaluation of activities (10 marks), project work (05 marks) and continuous evaluation through formative and summative test (05 marks).

Another new feature will be the optical character reading (OCR) sheets that Class X students will use during their science practicals.

On the revised scheme of annual assessment in science and technology, Mr. Ganguly said: “The theory examination will comprise 60 marks, while practicals will be for 40 marks divided into two components.

A hands-on school based year-end examination that will be internally assessed and a practical skill based MCQ written paper for one and a half hours that will be evaluated externally are new features”.

The Board has also decided to retain the “cool off” time that was introduced last year where students are given the question paper along with the sealed answer-books at 10.15 a.m. a good 15 minutes before the start of the examination.

More than 12 lakh students will take the Class XII and Class X examination that will commence from March 1 and 2 respectively. This is nearly a lakh more than last year when there were 4, 54, 480 candidates for Class XII and 6, 47, 992 for Class X.

Asked why the grading system introduced for Class IX from this year failed to take off, Mr. Ganguly said the Board was ready with the project and would implement it the moment they got instructions.

“We have presented our proposal to a high-level committee. They will scrutinize it and give us their feedback. We are ready and could initiate the grading system for Class IX from 2008 once we get once we get the nod”, be added.

Central Board Secondary Education Examinations

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