Change In HSC Exam Pattern From 2020-21

Cuttack: The Board of Secondary Education (BSE) has decided to change the pattern of High School Certificate (HSC) examination from 2020-21.

Talking to mediapersons here on Thursday, BSE president Dr Jahan Ara Begum said there will be no OMR and multiple-choice questions in the annual HSC examination from 2020-21. There will be short questions of 50 marks and long questions of the same marks.

She also said that there would minor changes in the examination pattern in 2018-19. “The subjective and objective question will be of 15 marks each. Besides, as against three question sets, there will be four.

The BSE president, however, said that the Class IX students will appear for the annual examination in 2019 in the new pattern to be introduced in 2020-21 annual HSC examination to get them used to the new question pattern.

“It has been decided that in the annual HSC examination, scheduled for 2019, the OMR questions of 50 marks and the subjective questions of 50 will be retained. However, there will be a slight change in the question pattern and the pass criteria. Students securing 15 marks in the OMR and 15 marks in the subjective can pass the examination,” she pointed out.

She also said that in the previous annual HSC examinations, there used to be three sets of question papers. These questions were randomly arranged and given to the other students. In the new pattern, there will be four sets of question papers, which will be different from other sets of question papers. These will be the same difficulty level so that each student answers these questions on his/her own and there is no scope for him/her to seek help. Hence to get acquainted with such questions and the new pattern, the Board has decided to introduce the new pattern for the Class IX students in their final examination in 2019, she added.

The BSE president said the new question pattern to be introduced in the annual examination in 2020 will cut down the rate of malpractice to a large extent.