CBSE 2008: Students pleased with new format on Day 1

NEW DELHI: Easy but tricky -- that is how the students described the question papers as the examinations for class X and class XII under Central Board of Secondary Education started on Saturday across the country and abroad. For the first time, 20 per cent of the questions required 'high-order thinking skills' as prescribed by the National Curriculum Framework (NCF), the guiding document for preparation of NCERT textbooks. The class-XII students appeared in the Chemistry paper while Class-X students sat for Information Technology. However, the students did not find any problem to answer them. "It was not at all difficult. Those questions were bit tricky," Ananya Roy Choudhary, a Class-XII student of Delhi Public School, Dwarka, said. She said the question paper was a bit lengthy as there were many questions which warranted brief answers. "But I could answer them before time. It took me two hours to answer all questions and I had one hour time to revise," she said. "If you are thorough with the textbooks, you would not find any problem to answer," said another student. The class-X students appeared in the Information Technology paper which was on expected line, students said. "The questions were as per expectations. We could answer them before time," Snehashis Mitra, a student of Mount St Mary school, said with a smile. CBSE spokesperson Roma Sharma said the exam was conducted in a peaceful manner.