Chennai: Class XII CBSE students who took the mathematics exam on Monday struggled to understand the questions and manage time. Printing errors in the maths and applied maths papers left them confused and frustrated.While students who received the Set 3 question paper found it lengthy, those who got Sets 2 and 1 said the case study questions and even multiple-choice questions were tricky. “In the pre-board exams held at our school, we were trained to finish the paper in 160 minutes and use the remaining 20 minutes to revise our answers. But I finished the paper just in time. I don’t even recall what I wrote,” said K Shivani, a student from Chennai Public School.Students said that missing brackets in a sum to prove an equation left many of them wasting more than 10 minutes on the question. “Though exceptional students were able to spot the error upon seeing the sum, not all students could do so. We cannot blame the students here,” the principal of a prominent school in Gerugambakkam said.However, a section of teachers and school heads said the paper was only moderately hard. “In our school, students said the paper was only moderately hard, though lengthy. Everyone could finish it. Repeated practice will help students ace the test,” KSN Senior Secondary School teacher Charles said.Moreover, this will be the norm going forward, teachers say. “Competency-based questions that require students to think out of the box will be prioritized,” said Maharishi Vidya Mandir senior principal Haribabu.
