CHENNAI: Following a tough Chemistry paper in the Class XII board examination, which left many students in tears, the students may get grace marks for a five-mark question and a one-mark question, which were said to be out of syllabus.
It is learnt that at the meeting held by the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Government Examinations (TNDGE) with teachers and senior officials from the School Education Department, it was decided to provide full marks to these two controversial questions.
In the Chemistry exam held on March 14, answers for a one-mark question (question number 18 in ‘A’ series and 17 in ‘B’ series) and one descriptive question (second half of question number 70) were not available in the present textbooks.
Many students and teachers complained that there was a very little chance of students scoring centums because of the two questions.
“The TNDGE on Monday has decided to provide six marks as grace marks for these questions,” sources told Express.
Confirming this, KPO Suresh, State president of the Tamil Nadu Postgraduate Teachers Association, said that they held talks with the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Government Examinations over the grace mark issue and lowering the burden on number of sheets to be evaluated in a day and the officials had agreed to both our demands. So, during the evaluation process, teachers, instead of evaluating 40 answer scripts per day, would be evaluating only 36 papers this year, that is, 18 papers before and after lunch.
Sources told Express that the chemistry exam answer key would be prepared based on these corrections and further evaluations would begin on April 4, two days after the final board exam. The evaluation of answer scripts would go on for two weeks and the officials had planned to finish it by April 20, sources added.