The West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE) has announced that for the class 12 or Uccha Madhyamik board exams 2023, instead of separate question papers for part A and part B, there will be only one integrated question paper. Therefore, both the parts need not be attached together at the end of the examination as has been done earlier.
The board has informed that all objective and subjective questions will be featured in one question paper. The WBCHSE has said that the previous question papers were too complicated. But this time the question papers will be simpler. Earlier, a separate notebook was provided for writing the answers to the questions in part A of the question paper. Part B had short answer questions and the answers had to be given in a separate question paper. Then the two answer sheets had to be submitted together.
The WB Higher Secondary Education Council President Chiranjeev Bhattacharya announced the change in question format. “Booklets will not be given separately from this time. There will be MCQ and SAQ questions along with the main questions. The answer should be given in a specific place in the main ledger. Students should write answers according to the sequence number of the questions,” Bhattacharya said.
According to WBCHSE, this decision has been taken prioritising the opinions and suggestions of students, teachers, and examiners. In its notification, students and teachers in higher secondary have been informed that some parts of the question paper and answer sheet have been changed.
A section of teachers have claimed that the division of marks in higher secondary question paper will be the same as in 2020 or earlier but there are some confusion related to the division of numbers in the papers. Further, the teachers fears that the change in the exam pattern will increase the chances of cheating in the exam. Earlier, there were four types of question papers, and the candidates would not know which set of question the student next to him/her has. Now it will be easier for them to cheat, however, the WBCHSE is of the opinion that the students will benefit from the new pattern.