Students who appeared for the CBSE Class XII mathematics exam on Wednesday were crestfallen, with most of them complaining that unit-wise weightage of marks prescribed by the board was not followed in the question paper.
Some of them even fainted after browsing and finding it excessively difficult to crack the tough questions.
This has cast a shadow on the aspirations of many students who are planning to join engineering and medical courses as a score of at least 50 per cent is must for getting admission to these courses in the state.
“Students were in a state of panic after writing the exam. Two of them even fainted. Questions were highly unexpected. The whole pattern had been changed. CBSE often changes the question papers without notice. Questions from probability, matrix and integration were the toughest,” lamented Aneesha N, a mathematics teacher from Kozhikode.
According to the students, the questions were mostly value-based, for example ‘A hockey match ends in a draw, a referee asks both captains to roll the dice and whoever gets number six is the winner. What is the value and do you think the system is fair?’. “Since quite a number of the questions were like this, we had to spent so much time just to crack one question. I left out a fair few as I could not find any answers,” said a student of a CBSE school.
“I could not answer questions for up to 30 to 40 marks. Most of them were asked in such a twisted fashion that I had to spent almost 20 minutes just to comprehend them,” complained Mridula M Nair, who is now apprehensive if she would manage to get the above 50 per cent grade to be eligible for admission to a medical course. Students were shocked when they saw the paper, conceded teachers across the state. “We did not anticipate so many questions to be value-based. It is the first time such a pattern has been introduced.” said a teacher.
“Though the CBSE had informed the schools about the change in the question pattern, the changes were not effected in the textbooks. Many of the teachers relied on the internet to download the study materials as per the new pattern. However, the question paper further deviated from this pattern as the unit-wise weightage was not adhered to,” said Geethalakshmi, Principal of Rani Public School, Vadakara, Kozhikode, where more than 200 students took the Class XII maths exam on Wednesday. Indira Rajan, general secretary of the Kerala CBSE School Managements’ Association, said that the same problem was witnessed last year and brought to the notice of the board authorities. “Last year, only around 60 per cent of the students in the state who appeared for the CBSE Class XII exam could score above 50 per cent marks. As a result, there was a massive exodus of CBSE students to medical and engineering colleges outside the state, especially to Tamil Nadu where the norms are much relaxed,” she said.
T P M Ibrahim Khan, president of the Kerala CBSE school management association, criticised the pattern.
“Here, we are trying to lighten the burden of the students. But every year, it is getting tougher. We have registered our protest with the CBSE chairman,” he said.