Hyderabad: CBSE students in the commerce stream complained that the Class XII Business Studies paper on Wednesday was more complicated and took longer to answer, a complaint that was echoed by teachers.
CBSE had changed the exam pattern this year, and emphasis was laid on application-based questions rather than objective questions as in previous years. Teachers said that questions on Higher Order Thinking Skills constituted more than half the paper.
“This year, we had almost 80 to 90 per cent applications-based questions with long comprehension essays based on which students had to answer questions. The difficulty level, students said, was definitely higher. Even for two-mark or four-mark questions the time required to answer questions was quite high,” a Kendriya Vidyalaya teacher of Business Studies said.
Teachers said that the advantage was that there were no fixed answers to the questions but only “the best answers.”
Answers to the questions depend on the interpretations of the student. Kendriya Vidyalaya-Uppal principal J. Ramadevi said, “The paper was tougher this year than usual. Our students have echoed similar views. But they also said that despite that they have done well.”
Asked if the Kendriya Vidyalayas in the city would ask the CBSE to consider being lenient in valuation, she said there was no such idea. A report from Kerala said a large number of schools had sent complaints to the CBSE headquarters in New Delhi regarding the paper. The schools are trying to make the valuation liberal to help out students. The schools said that nearly 90 per cent of the questions were application level and hence difficult. “Usually, 15-20 per cent questions come as application level,” said a teacher in a CBSE school in Kochi.
