According to a recent CBSE report highlighting features and new initiatives for board examination 2019, there will be changes in the question paper format with 33% extra internal choices. Questions with such choices is expected to give students a chance to improve their marks.
According to a CBSE official, multiple choice questions can assess higher order thinking skills (HOTS) in addition to understanding and application of knowledge. "CBSE is introducing a fixed percentage of multiple choice questions to increase the objectivity of assessment and also to improve the quality of evaluation," an official tells Education Times.
"It is envisaged that students will have the option of attempting different types of questions. These questions will be from any unit of the syllabus and therefore, students will have to go through the entire portion, or the assigned chapters as per the sample blue print of question paper released by the Board. The question papers will also have long answer questions," adds the official.
Talking about the CBSE initiatives, Shayama Chona, former principal of Delhi Public School, RK Puram, says, "I have spoken to a few principals and they are very pleased with 33% extra internal choices.
The report also says that consideration will be given to creative answers, in which case there is no doubt that these changes are in the best interests of the students. It is true but unfortunate that those who check the papers go strictly by the sample answers in each paper in every subject and this would be an issue as we need creative teachers to understand the difference," she says.
"I do hope that the question papers will be balanced; divided equally in different learning modes that is, memory, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis and finally creativity which has been mentioned in the report," she added.
"Earlier, optional were restricted to long answer, 5-mark questions. But with the recent inclusion of more choices in the questions, even the one-markers will have options which has come as a relief to many students," says principal Ruchi Seth, Lotus Valley International School, Noida.