Application-based questions in ICSE and ISC encourage students to think and analyse

Some of the questions in the ICSE (Class X) and ISC (Class XII) examinations this year are application-based, encouraging students to think and analyse instead of “reproducing” their text.

The questions demand a different form of preparation, teachers said. Increasingly, the focus is moving from memorising the text to understanding the principles and being able to apply them in their answers, they said.

A paper demanding critical thinking is not necessarily a difficult paper, but students have to be thorough with the principles and concepts to be able to figure out the question.

For example, an ISC geography question this year read: “A landowner bought cultivable land for growing a crop. Despite all his efforts, the land did not yield any crop. Give any two reasons to explain why the land did not yield any crop.”

In the ICSE history paper, one of the MCQs read: “Tina is inspired by the methods of the early nationalists and wants to follow them. She notices that the road leading to her school is damaged and has many potholes. Which of the following methods is she most likely to follow...”

The options were: boycott the civic authorities, gather a group of students and protest, write a petition to the authorities highlighting the problem, block the entrance to the road.

Teachers said the question gave students the scope to think and reflect, instead of prodding them to regurgitate.

“Thinking questions are not necessarily difficult questions. Such questions test the understanding of a student,” said Damayanti Mukherjee, principal, Modern High School for Girls.

The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), which conducts the ICSE and ISC exams, had last year sent a circular to schools announcing that the exams in 2024 would see a “small increase” in the percentage of “higher order and critical thinking questions”.

The share of such questions will increase over the years.

School principals said the onus was on teachers to change the manner of teaching and make the classroom more exploratory and interactive.

“We will have to use more real-life examples and give students situations to test their problem-solving abilities. We cannot rest our teaching on theories alone,” said Joeeta Basu, who teaches economics in Classes XI and XII.

A principal, himself a student of history, told his students that the questions had to be seen from a wider perspective.

“We have learned history but never really learned from history. Critical thinking can be applied in being able to distance oneself from a historical event and learn the mistakes from it or how it helped in a particular situation,” said Rodney Borneo, principal, St Augustine’s Day School, Shyamnagar.

The traditional approach of relying on a 10-year question bank to prepare for the exams may finally be facing a challenge.

Jessica Gomes Surana, principal of Loreto Day School, Elliot Road, said for a teacher there was “more excitement and nervousness” to see the papers this year. “Earlier, they would know the kind of questions that would be asked. Not anymore,” she said.

While the question papers only have some questions that are application-based, a section of teachers feels it might be limiting for average students.

“It is in the last leg of the preparations that the average students pull up their socks, study and raise their levels for the board exams. But such questions might limit them at a certain level,” said Terence John, principal, Julien Day School, Kalyani.