Published On : Mon, Mar 14th, 2016

Students appearing for CBSE maths paper shocked over difficult question paper

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Nagpur: Once again the CBSE is in the news for the wrong reasons. The Class 12 CBSE Mathematics Paper scheduled for March 14, 2016 has made students bewildered again this year because of the way it was set.

While speaking to Nagpur Today, many teachers of CBSE Schools in the city spoke on condition of anonymity and said that they saw many students emerging from Examination Centres crying.

When asked most students who are considered bright and good in Mathematics claimed that the paper was designed in a way to check or ascertain the mathematical skills of the students by posing complicated questions. One teacher of a reputed school in the city said that none of the questions were from the list of most expected questions.

Another teacher claimed that one student said that even one-mark questions were very lengthy and very difficult to even fathom or understand which took a long time and so they couldn’t complete the answers.

Another student while speaking to Nagpur Today said that most of his classmates found many questions so difficult that they left many questions worth 10-15 marks unanswered.

A parent while speaking to Nagpur Today said that what were the teachers who set the Mathematics paper thinking while setting such a difficult paper? Did they want to prove that Mathematics is after-all a killer subject.

Another parent claimed that the question paper when showed to a tuition teacher, found it to be one that is intended to fail the students at all costs or to check the very brilliant student’s intellect.

Nagpur Today Analysis:

No to NCERT Book

Students are usually advised to revise their syllabus from the main book, NCERT. However, the case was different this year, as a large portion of the questions in the paper was from supplementary books.

Many students noted that the questions from the Calculus section were not understandable within the given time frame. “We faced shortage of time, as the questions were difficult to understand. In fact, I did not find the answers for a lot of questions, and I had to submit the paper with only the workings.”

The students who had practiced sample papers from RD Sharma found the paper easier in comparison to those who studied from the NCERT. “There were similar questions to what I practiced from the help books,” said a student.

Flaws in Pattern

Since students were given a fixed question pattern regarding the chapters, along with the weight age for each chapter, they were mentally prepared accordingly. The topics and the allotted marks are given below:

Linear Programming- 6 marks
Relations and Functions- 10 marks
Probabiity- 10 marks
Algebra- 13 marks
Vectors and 3D geometry- 17marks
Calculus- 44 marks

Unfortunately, the paper was not set according to this marking scheme, and the students had to answer intricate “Calculus questions in section-C, which consisted of only 4 marks each.” The lengthy 4-mark questions should ideally have been put in the last section carrying 6 marks.

Tricky and Lengthy

Many students found the paper tricky and were not able to comprehend the questions. “A question from ‘Matrix’ took a lot of time and I am still not confident about my answer,” said one of the students. Many of the students complained about this particular question. Moreover, it was a lengthy paper as students had to do a lot of workings and calculations to reach the answers.

Overall

All in all, those who studied from the supplementary books were better able to write the paper in comparison with those who had studied from the NCERT books.

This year, a total number of 14,99,122 candidates have applied for the Class 12 exam, out of which 4,46,641 are girls and 6,21,259 are boys. Starting at 10:30 am, the three-hour long exam ended at 1:30 pm. Ahead of the exam, the students were given 15 minutes extra to read the question paper, which was distributed at 10:15 am.