Second pre-university students who sat for the second pre-university examinations that concluded last week will be awarded grace marks for the English and physics papers.
While all students will get two grace marks for the English paper, there is a possibility of students getting up to six marks in the physics paper.
C. Shikha, Director of the Department of Pre-University Education, said that the students will be given two grace marks in the English paper for the compulsory question. “For the physics paper, however, all students will be given one grace mark. Those who have attempted the optional questions, will get additional five marks,” she said.
This decision was taken after two committees of the respective subject experts had a meeting and scrutinised the question papers. The second committee met on Wednesday and submitted its report to the department. Now, all the evaluators will have to mark papers based on the approved scheme of evaluation, which will also be put out in the public domain.
Sources said that the subject experts had decided to allot grace marks due to spelling or typographical errors, which led to ambiguity in some of the questions. While 6.9 lakh students, who appeared for the second pre-university examination, will benefit from the grace marks in English, as many as 2.32 lakh students, who appeared for the science stream, will benefit from the marks awarded for the physics paper.
It was only in March 2017 that the Department of Primary and Secondary Education had framed the rules for allocation of grace marks. Currently, they will be awarded to candidates only if a question is out of syllabus, ambiguous or inconsistent. The grace marks allotted to the candidates will be noted down in the answer script.
In the past, grace marks were decided ‘arbitrarily’ by lecturers at the evaluation camps, which led to 21 grace marks being allotted to students who wrote the March 2016 mathematics examination.
