Board exams are here, know the rules governing tests

The ISC (Class XII) exams begin on Thursday and ICSE (Class X) on February 18. The CBSE Class X and XII exams start on February 15.

Metro lists some of the things that the examinees should know:

• First paper: The ISC exams begin with environmental science on Thursday. The number of students opting for the subject is not too many. Not all schools offer it. For most schools, ISC starts on Friday with English language. English is a compulsory subject.
• Reach on time: Schools have advised students to be on the premises at least 45 minutes to an hour before the start of each day's test.

Except for art, ICSE papers start at 11am and ISC at 2pm.

The CBSE exams start at 10.30am. Students are to be seated in the exam hall 30 minutes before the start of each day's test.

The ICSE and ISC examinees write their papers in their respective schools. In the CBSE exams, the students of one school write their papers in another school.

• CCTV surveillance: The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), which conducts the ICSE and ISC exams and the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) have made CCTV surveillance mandatory. The schools have to record the conduct of the examinations and save it till the publication of the results.

“There has to be adequate CCTV coverage of students appearing for the exams. We have installed CCTV cameras in the rooms where students will write their papers," said Loveleen Saigal, principal, Birla High School for Boys, a CBSE school.

Keya Sinha, principal, National Gems Higher Secondary School, said students have been told about CCTV surveillance.

• More analytical and critical thinking questions: The percentage of analytical and critical thinking questions are increasing every year for ICSE/ISC and CBSE exams.

“We have trained our students in competency-based questions and told them that they should be prepared for more analytical questions,” said Terence John, director of education and development, Julien Day Schools (ICSE/ISC).

“The first 15 minutes is for reading the questions. We have told our students they could take 10 more minutes to read the questions thoroughly instead of jumping into writing the answers. It is important that they comprehend the analytical questions well because they have to think and answer instead of reproducing the text,” he said.