Students taking the Class XII CBSE exam in 2019 will have to face more long answer-type questions in the English paper.

The Central Board of Secondary Education, which has 20,000 affiliated schools, has announced changes to its Class XII English Core paper with effect from the 2018-19 session. Nearly 12 lakh students take the board exam every year. English Core is a compulsory paper.

According to a notification issued last week by Joseph Emmanuel, director (academic) of the CBSE, students will have to answer two long answer-type questions of five marks each from a given passage. They had to answer one such question till this year.

Instead of one short answer-type question of three marks, they will have to answer three such questions of two marks each from now.

However, there will be a reduction in the number of multiple-choice questions (MCQ) and very short answer-type questions carrying one mark each. The number of passages will be two in place of three.

Usha Ram, a former principal of Laxman Public School in New Delhi and ex-governing body member of the CBSE, welcomed the move.

“Students taking the Class XII board exam are supposed to have command over reading and comprehension. More long answer-type questions will help in better assessment of the understanding of students,” Ram said.

The topper of the 2018 CBSE Class XII exam, a student from the humanities stream, had secured 499 marks out of 500. This prompted many to criticise the assessment policy of the board.

The CBSE held consultations with various stakeholders, including parents, teachers, principals and students.

“Consequent upon the feedback received from the various stakeholders and subsequent deliberation in the meeting of the committee of courses of the board and subject experts the following changes have been made,” the CBSE notification said.

Kiran Mehta, director (academics) at Mother Mary School in Delhi’s Mayur Vihar, said more stress on long answer-type questions would burden students.

“The students will have to answer questions in the literature and writing skills sections (of the English Core paper) too. They will have long answer-type questions in those sections too. This move will add to the stress of students,” Mehta said.

The CBSE has also decided to advance the exam by around 15 days.

While the board exam usually begins in the first week of March, next year’s Classes X and XII exams will start in the second half of February with tests on vocational subjects. But exams on the core papers will be held in March.

Advancing the exams will enable the board to declare the results early. It will also aid early re-evaluation so that the revised results are declared before university admissions.

THE CHANGES

Changes in CBSE core English language paper for Class XII from 2019

• Existing: 40 questions in all
  
• Revised: 35 questions in all
  
• Existing: 2 comprehension passages of 1,100-1,200 words each and one passage of 400-500 words
  
• Revised: 2 passages of 800-900 words each
  
• Existing: 6 MCQs of 1 mark each; 16 very short answer-type questions, including 1 on vocabulary, of 1 mark each; 1 short answer-type question of 3 marks and one long answer-type question of 5 marks
  
• Revised: 5 MCQs of 1 mark each; 9 very short answer-type questions, including 3 questions on vocabulary of 1 mark each; 3 short answer-type questions of 2 marks each; 2 long answer-type questions of 5 marks each