The chemistry paper leakage and cancellation of the examination twice may have had its effect on the students’ performance in the exam that they eventually wrote on April 12. For, the pass percentage in chemistry this year dipped by over 3 points when compared with the last year. While last year 86.98 per cent of those who wrote the chemistry paper cleared it, the pass percentage fell to 83.31 this year.
For the record, the chemistry exam held on March 21 was cancelled following the question paper leakage and the re-exam was cancelled on March 31 when the paper leaked again. Finally, when the students wrote the paper it came too close to various entrance exams for professional courses, causing anxiety.
Interestingly, most students who wrote the exam on April 12 had said that the question paper was quite easy and even the number of students scoring centum increased to 1,280 this year from last year’s 966.
Also the number of science students who wrote the exam increased this year. While 1.93 lakh science students appeared for the exam this year, last year it was 1.72 lakh students.
However, despite the drop in the pass percentage in chemistry, it is the same paper that has the highest number of passes among the core science subjects. The pass percentage in other core science subjects is: biology (77.58), physics (80.72) and mathematics (80.89).
Srividya, principal of V.V.S. Sardar Patel PU College at Basaveshwarnagar where 165 of the 215 students have secured distinction, said the aggregate results had dipped because of the mathematics and chemistry scores. While the mathematics paper was said to be lengthy, the chemistry exam was cancelled twice. She pointed out that the low mathematics scores had affected the aggregate percentage and would have an impact on the CET engineering ranking.
The mathematics pass percentage stands at 80.89, a shade higher than the last year’s 79.39, despite a large number of students finding the paper lengthy and difficult. Many students had even started an online petition demanding leniency in marking.
CBSE class 12 students too had faced a similar problem with mathematics paper this year.
