A ‘Ramanujan effect’ seems to have swept Madhyamik 2004, with 221 students from the city and its neighbourhood scoring a perfect 100 in mathematics. The results of the no-merit-list Madhyamik were declared on Thursday.

A total of 299 candidates from Bengal have secured full marks in mathematics this year, creating a record of sorts. Another 62 students from the city (of 77 in the state) have scored a century in additional mathematics, while 142 of the 156 candidates from Bengal have earned the distinction in additional mechanics, as well.

Overall, the Madhyamik results showed a slight improvement over last year (see box). Apart from the overall pass percentage, the number of star-holders crept up from 15,898 to 22,127 and the number of first divisions went up from 91,053 to 92,807.

On the day of the mathematics examination, a large number of students had emerged in tears or frowns. The paper had been “tough”, many had alleged, so much so that the Madhyamik board office was flooded with complaints.

Several candidates and their guardians had held the Madhyamik board responsible for the difficult paper.

Board officials had then said that the answer papers would be marked “leniently.” They even devised a method to prove that the paper was actually not that tough and introduced from this year an exercise that isolated the mathematics results from the other subjects.

“The high number of full-marks achievers points to two possibilities — either the questions were not tough, or, despite the questions being tough, the mathematical acumen of the students prevailed,” said a board official.

On Calcutta emerging as the number-crunching capital, Debabrata Basu, in charge of the mathematics department at South Point School, pointed out: “Students in Calcutta have more opportunities and facilities.”

“The pressure from parents on students in and around the city is much greater than the pressure that students in the districts face,” added the teacher of South Point, where over 30 of the 850 candidates this year scored a 100 on 100.

Basu clarified that no complaints against the mathematics paper had been lodged by any of his students.

“Our students have always been strong in mensuration and algebra,” Basu said.

One of his students, Soumadip De Sarkar, said he was “happy” he had scored full marks. “In addition to the school’s prescribed textbooks, I used to solve quite a lot of problems from reference books,” he smiled.

A senior mathematics teacher at Jadavpur Vidyapith, Madhab Das Pradhan, also pointed out that “practice and more practice makes getting 100 per cent possible”. Over 20 of the 162 examinees from his school scored full marks.

The success stories in the optional subjects also enthused board officials. “That so many students have also done so well even in optional subjects is an indication of how seriously these teenagers are taking things,” said an official.

With merit lists no longer coming into play and marksheets being distributed in an organised manner, the declaration of the Madhyamik results was not accompanied by the usual frenzy.

Among the figures rattled off on Thursday by board officials, the number of examiners in Madhyamik 2004 rose from 26,365 last year to 29,390. The number of head examiners was up from 521 in Madhyamik 2003 to 535 this year.