The Class 12 CBSE mathematics board examination took place today on March 14, which is co-incidentally the birthday of famous scientist Albert Einstein, who used to say, “Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.”
Here, the battle of this difficult subject continues, as the majority of students did not find the paper easy. “We were more prepared for NCERT based questions, but the paper was set from other books,” said one of students. The questions were given more from supplementary books that are not affordable to many students. “A number of questions were from RD Sharma,” added the student.
No to NCERT Book
Students are usually advised to revise their syllabus from the main book, NCERT. However, the case was different this year, as a large portion of the questions in the paper was from supplementary books.
Many students noted that the questions from the Calculus section were not understandable within the given time frame. “We faced shortage of time, as the questions were difficult to understand. In fact, I did not find the answers for a lot of questions, and I had to submit the paper with only the workings.”
The students who had practiced sample papers from RD Sharma found the paper easier in comparison to those who studied from the NCERT. “There were similar questions to what I practiced from the help books,” said a student from Amity International School, Noida.
Flaws in Pattern
Since students were given a fixed question pattern regarding the chapters, along with the weight age for each chapter, they were mentally prepared accordingly. The topics and the allotted marks are given below:
Linear Programming- 6 marks
Relations and Functions- 10 marks
Probabiity- 10 marks
Algebra- 13 marks
Vectors and 3D geometry- 17marks
Calculus- 44 marks
Unfortunately, the paper was not set according to this marking scheme, and the students had to answer intricate “Calculus questions in section-C, which consisted of only 4 marks each.” The lengthy 4-mark questions should ideally have been put in the last section carrying 6 marks.
Tricky and Lengthy
Many students found the paper tricky and were not able to comprehend the questions. “A question from ‘Matrix’ took a lot of time and I am still not confident about my answer,” said one of the students. Many of the students complained about this particular question. Moreover, it was a lengthy paper as students had to do a lot of workings and calculations to reach the answers.
Overall
All in all, those who studied from the supplementary books were better able to write the paper in comparison with those who had studied from the NCERT books.
This year, a total number of 14,99,122 candidates have applied for the Class 12 exam, out of which 4,46,641 are girls and 6,21,259 are boys. Starting at 10:30 am, the three-hour long exam ended at 1:30 pm. Ahead of the exam, the students were given 15 minutes extra to read the question paper, which was distributed at 10:15 am.