CBSE Revises Question Paper Format For Classes X, XII

The Central Board of Secondary Education has revised the design of question papers in all the major subjects of Classes XII and X to assess Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) in children that will focus on evaluating their abilities to reason and analyse than simply their memorising power.

Short answer type

Announcing this at a press conference here on Thursday, CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly said in the newly designed paper about 10 per cent questions will be very short answer type and about 20 per cent questions will assess HOTS.

“Based on the National Curriculum Framewok-2005, the Board has redesigned the question papers that will come into effect from March 2008 examinations.

Besides testing understanding of information, the focus will be on measuring students’ abilities to reason, justify, analyse, process and evaluate information,” he said.

Sample papers

“Sample question papers developed on the new design have been published. They are also available on the CBSE website ( www.cbse.nic.in). The format of the question paper will include very short answer type, short answer type, long answer type questions,” Mr. Ganguly said.

The subjects in which HOTS will be implemented are: Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology, Political Science, History and Economics in Class XII and Languages, Social Science, Mathematics and Science in Class X.

The CBSE examination for both Classes XII and X will commence on March 1. Over 13.13 lakh candidates have registered themselves for both the senior school certificate examination (Class XII) as well as secondary school examination (Class X) this year, 8 per cent more than in 2007. The number of students appearing for Class XII is 5.48 lakh, while that for Class X is 7.65 lakh.

As many as 160,414 and 219,796 children from Delhi are scheduled to appear in Class XII and X CBSE examinations.

There will be 2,394 examination centres for Class XII and 2,624 for Class X in the entire country. Ninety-one examination centres will be set up in foreign countries for their schools affiliated to CBSE.

Additional time

Also, from this year onwards, special category students appearing for Classes XII and X — including blind students, dyslexics, handicapped and spastics — will be given additional time.

“The number of candidates registered in special categories for Classes XII and X this year is 870 and 1,608 respectively. They will be given 60 minutes extra for a paper of three-hour duration, 50 minutes for a paper of two and a half hours and 40 minutes for a two-hour paper. The examination centre superintendent will make the necessary arrangements for them,” said Mr. Ganguly.

“For the first time we constituted district level committees to suggest schools with adequate infrastructure for fixing up of examination centres to facilitate smooth conduct of examinations. Also, Chief Nodal Practical Examiners have been appointed this time to monitor the conduct of practical examinations for Class XII,” the CBSE chairman said.

The Board has also increased the number of chances to appear in compartment examination from the existing three to five for subjects in Classes XII and X.

Answer scripts on website

Mr. Ganguly also added that the answer scripts of those students who scored a cent per cent in different subjects this past year will be put up on the CBSE website within a week.

Courtesy : The Hindu