New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) was flooded on Thursday with requests to leniently evaluate answer scripts for the board’s Class 12 mathematics paper which made scores of students go hot and cold over a set of high-difficulty questions called HOTS.
Parents, teachers and students wrote to the CBSE on Wednesday’s exam, calling it the toughest in a decade after it left many children in tears.
Many students took to social media to vent their frustration and register complaints as the board faced flak for setting around 50% questions on higher order thinking skills (HOTS), which should ideally be around 10% to 20%, though most of these were broadly based from the syllabus.
These application-based questions were of a higher difficulty level, requiring in-depth conceptual understanding.
The students demanded on Twitter, Facebook and other online forums re-examination of the maths paper. “The paper should be based on NCERT textbooks and hardly there were any questions from it. I may not be an excellent student but seriously, it becomes so difficult for people who are average and below,” tweeted Jimmy Singh.
The anxiety stems from the fact that students look forward to high scores in subjects such as maths to push up their total marks in Class 12, a nerve-wracking obligation these days because of extreme cut-off percentages at good colleges.
Besides, a number of solutions have been suggested such as marking students leniently and moderating marks heavily to make sure a large number of children do not fail.
Good to see people reacting strongly to yesterday’s Maths paper. Was way out of our level. Thank you #CBSE! You just ruined our life.
— Manya Pilani (@CSKian716) March 19, 2015
The maths paper was a totally off the track disaster ! #cbse #maths#2015#boards .
Representations have reached CBSE, with many parents even attempting to meet officials through the day.
The National Progressive School Alliance wrote to the board asking them to bring relief to students through the marking scheme. “For children in Delhi, the situation is much worse. Our kids get a different paper as compared to kids from other parts of the country. The paper that Delhi kids got is much tougher. This policy needs to be looked at,” said Ameeta Wattal, chairperson, National Progressive School Alliance.
Setting a retest paper was not a solution, she said. “You can’t have children sit through another examination. That is not a viable option.”
The Delhi Parents’ Association wrote to the CBSE for a lenient evaluation. “These marks will not just affect the student’s morale but also their college admissions,” the association said.
