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The ISC English Paper-II test, scheduled for March 4, has been deferred to March 16 after a school in Lucknow mistakenly opened a packet containing question papers of the subject on Friday.
“We have a second set of questions ready. But we are forced to hold the exam at a later date because we need some time to print the questions,” said Gerry Arathoon, the chief executive and secretary of the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations, which conducts the ISC (Class XII) and ICSE (Class X) tests.
Nearly 60,000 examinees are appearing in the ISC exam across the country. English, the compulsory first language in the ISC curriculum, comprises two papers of 100 marks each.
Friday’s test was on English Paper I but a packet containing English Paper II question papers was opened by mistake at the Lucknow school.
The wrong question papers were distributed to students but taken away minutes later after the examinees pointed out the mistake to the supervising examiners.
A preliminary investigation revealed that the officials tasked with bringing the question papers from a bank locker to the school had collected a wrong packet.
“This is sheer negligence and appropriate action will be taken against those responsible for causing inconvenience to the examinees and the council,” said a council official.
It is the duty of the supervising examiners and a person nominated by the principal of each school hosting the test to collect question papers from banks.
Before distributing the question papers, the invigilator on duty at each exam hall is required to check whether the right packet has been opened.
“The name of the subject is printed in bold on the cover of the packets. It’s surprising that all those involved in the process overlooked the label,” said Arathoon.
The change in the schedule in the middle of a board exam has caused a lot of anxiety and confusion among the examinees.
“Students tend to believe that the second set of questions will be tougher. This results in a lot of stress,” said a senior teacher of English at an ISC school in the city.
In 2009, the ICSE geography exam had to be rescheduled after a school in Bangalore had wrongly opened a packet containing question papers on the subject in advance.
The council had deferred the ISC tests on environmental education (Paper I theory) and environmental science (Paper I theory), scheduled for February 20 and 21, because they coincided with the all-India strike called by trade unions.
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