Jorhat, Sept. 26: Parents and students rushed to collect exam papers of different subjects from students of schools where exams have already been held after the CBSE English and maths question papers were almost common for two different schools in the Class IX half-yearly exam here.

From this year, the CBSE has set the questions for the half-yearly and for the finals of Class IX, marks of which will be added to the average grade point of CBSE Class X final examination.

This year, the English question paper of Army School here was almost the same as the Hemalata Handiqui Memorial Institute (HHMI) English paper and many questions overlapping in maths. With the HHMI half-yearly exams being held earlier, those Army School students who had collected the paper had a cakewalk in writing their exams.

An irate parent of a child who usually tops the class in Army School said his ward was depressed. Although he had done well as usual, those who were much inferior were bound to score better having the advantage of getting a glimpse of what pattern of questions was to come and had probably practised solving the maths paper.

“The board should give some directive that exams in the same subject should be held on the same day for all CBSE schools in the state or region if not in the country.”

HHMI principal D. Dutta, however, said it was sheer coincidence that the English papers were almost the same. “I have come to know about the matter. CBSE gives us 30 to 40 sets of papers of the same subject to choose from and this was sheer coincidence Moreover, we had changed section B of the paper and taken section B from a different set.”

In-charge principal of Assam Rifles Nodal School, A. Dutta, said the system, which prevailed in the school, was to take out two sets of the exam paper of the same subject and give it to the students.

He admitted that students of his school had collected question papers from other schools where the half-yearly had been held a bit earlier.

“The board directed all the CBSE schools here to hold the exams after September 15 but has not fixed particular dates for subjects. In accordance, some schools have finished theirs while ours and some other CBSE schools’ exams are going on,” he said.

He added that the system did have loopholes and those students of schools which had their exams later did have an advantage of collecting as many question papers as possible and there was a possibility of overlapping questions and even the coincidences of the same set being printed was high. “In a place like Guwahati where there are a number of CBSE schools, if a student collects the paper from 10 schools there is a pretty good chance of him getting a number of common questions,” Dutta said.