The state higher secondary council is set to increase the number of questions in the forthcoming HS examinations (fourth semester), allowing candidates greater flexibility in their responses, said the council secretary.
According to her, more options will help candidates find questions that are easier to answer.
The fourth-semester papers will comprise short, descriptive-type questions only.
“According to the new pattern, some sections which the council initially thought would have three questions will now have four. So a candidate who was earlier required to pick two questions from a set of three will now be required to pick two questions from a set of four questions,” said Priyadarshini Mallick, the council secretary.
“A student may not have completed the entire syllabus. For them, increasing the number of questions will help identify a question of preference from the portion they have covered. This will lead to a better performance,” the secretary said.
The exams will start on February 12 and continue till February 27.
The council president, in a recent meeting, informed heads of schools about increasing the number of questions in the exams.
Several teachers noted that the syllabus for the fourth semester remained unfinished due to breaks, the scarcity of books, and an insufficient number of classes. Therefore, the council intended to ease the scoring process for students.
“Classes of the fourth semester, which ideally should have started in October, started in November after a prolonged Puja vacation. Then the council delayed in making books available. The model question answers were published just a fortnight before the start of the exams,” said Swapan Mandal, the general secretary of the Bengal Teachers’ and Employees’ Association.
“To make up for the deficiencies, the council is now increasing the number of questions so that the candidates can score easily. But this will dilute the standards of the examinations,” said Mandal.
A council official said that the significantly lower number of students achieving the highest grade "O" (90-100) than anticipated in the third semester also led the council to simplify the question pattern for the students.
Out of 6,05,274 students who passed the third semester in early November, only 0.48 per cent secured the highest “O” grade.
Under the new semester-based system, introduced in 2024, the Plus-II course is divided into four semesters.
The council conducts the third and fourth semester exams, while schools hold the first and second semester exams.
In the third semester, students were tested on multiple-choice questions.
Compared to 0.48 per cent, 1.07 per cent of the 4.3 lakh successful candidates in the last higher secondary exam — held under the old system — had achieved the highest grade.
Until last year, HS students appeared for one board exam at the end of the two-year course.
“If the highest grade count does not improve, HS students would struggle at the undergraduate admission as a large number of students from the CBSE and ISC boards end up scoring the highest grade,” said a council official.
Chiranjib Bhattacharjee, the council president, said: “We would definitely want that students from the Bengal board to score the highest grade in substantial numbers so that they do not miss out while competing with students from the other boards.”
"The exams were intended to take place in March. Although the dates for the Assembly elections have not been announced, we have moved the exams up by a month. An adequate number of classes could not be held because of this," said a council official.