The Council of Boards of School Education in India’s (COBSE) plan to introduce a common question paper throughout the country for Classes 11 and 12 may be deferred by a year for PU students, though the State has prescribed books under the National Council of Educational Research and Training syllabus for them.
PU lecturers who participated in a meeting convened by the Department of Pre-University Education here on Monday told The Hindu that question papers for I and II PU exams had already been prepared.
While I PU exams will be held from February 20 to March 4, II PU exams are scheduled from March 12 to April 27.
The meeting deliberated common pattern proposed for I PU physics, chemistry, maths, and biology exams.
Lecturers said they submitted suggestions after taking into account the subject concerned and the larger benefit of students. For instance, they have asked to remove six multiple-choice questions (MCQs) in the mathematics paper to avoid “guess work”.
“We have asked for 10 one-mark questions. Also we have sought more number of questions by splitting the ones carrying more marks so that students can score better,” Dakshina Murthy. P.S., a maths lecturer from Seshadripuram College, Bangalore, said.
Another suggestion is to give “overall choices” instead of “internal choices.”
They have asked for the percentage of such questions to be increased to 40 instead of the proposed 28, while the State board pattern has 50 per cent of such questions, said another lecturer.
“This way, a student will be offered choices across chapters and they will study all of them. If they have not studied one particular chapter thoroughly, they will not lose marks as they can attempt questions from other chapters,” the lecturer said.
A physics lecturer said the COBSE’s proposal of not allowing physics students to use calculators had been given a thumbs down. “We want to test the students on their knowledge of physics, not maths,” he said.
