The CBSE exams for Class X and Class XII will be held offline in two parts this term because of the pandemic, with the first in November-December 2021 and the second in March-April 2022.

The date sheet for the major papers will be announced on October 18, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) said on Thursday.

The exams will start at 11.30am instead of the usual 10.30am in view of the winter and the duration of each test will be 90 minutes. The first-term exams will have only multiple-choice questions and the results will be declared. The format of the second-term exams will be decided on the basis of the pandemic situation. The final results will be the combination of the marks received over both terms.

“After the conduct of the term-1 exams, the results in the form of the marks scored will be declared. No student will be placed in the pass, compartment or essential repeat categories after the first term. The final results will be announced after the first- and second-term examinations,” CBSE examination controller Sanyam Bhardwaj said.

“Practical exams or internal assessment will be completed in schools before the first-term exams are over. The marks allotted will be 50 per cent of the total and mentioned in the syllabus. The schools will be informed separately about the full scheme so that they can make the necessary preparations,” he added.

To conduct the exams smoothly, the subjects have been segregated into major and minor categories.

For the minor papers, mostly regional languages, the exams will be held by clubbing schools offering common subjects so that the exam duration can be shortened by covering multiple subjects in a day. These exams will be held before those on the major papers.

The CBSE offers 114 subjects in Class XII and 75 subjects in Class X. There are nine major subjects in Class X and 19 in Class XII.

“The CBSE has to conduct the examinations for a total of 189 subjects. If tests are conducted for all the subjects, the entire duration of the exams will be 40-45 days. Therefore, to avoid learning loss of students, the CBSE has decided that the subjects offered by it will be divided into two parts — major subjects and minor subjects,” Bhardwaj said.

“As the major subjects are offered by almost all the affiliated schools, the exams for these will be conducted by fixing a date sheet, as done earlier. Regarding the minor subjects, the CBSE will make groups of schools offering these subjects and thus, more than one paper would be conducted by the board in the schools on a day,” he added.