Exam at ease

Ranchi, Feb. 6: Students appearing for board examinations this year can breathe easy. So can teachers correcting their papers. For, they will have less number of pages to bother them.

The Central Board of Secondary Education has decided to trim answer booklets for tests. Now, while Class XII students will get a 40-page answer booklet as compared to a 48-page booklet that they used to get earlier, the number of pages for Class X students have come down to 32 from 40.

Rama Sharma, public relations officer, CBSE, said: “The Delhi board has taken the move to ease the psychological pressure on students, who get daunted at the sight of fat booklets and feel that they would not get marks unless they write on all the pages.”

Welcoming the decision, principal of Army School C.J. Jacob said that the CBSE has taken the correct decision at a time when the entire world is reeling under an economic crisis. “This will ensure that the unused pages by the examinees will not be wasted. Moreover, it will be easy for the teachers to handle the answer papers,” Jacob said.

Jacob said that from this year onwards, CBSE has also started a new format that will rule out any type of errors that occur when students write their names on the answer sheets. Under the new system called machine-readable cataloguing format, students will not only have to write their names but also correspondingly circle the names on a given block to reduce chances of error.

CBSE has also introduced toll free helpline numbers, where the students can call with exam-related queries. The board has appointed three counsellors to handle the queries. They will be available on the helpline between 8am and 4pm from February 1 till March 31. The numbers are 011-2786401-02-03.

“The tele-counselling from will be done through interactive voice response system. We have also set up 39 helpline centres in different schools across India,” said Sharma.