Faulty answer key in CBSE Hindi paper, rectified after complaint

Faulty answer key in CBSE Hindi paper, rectified after complaint

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:  10.11.2021

A wrong answer key was sent to schools by Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Thursday for Term 1 Hindi test of Class X. As teachers found the results of a particular question paper set unusual during evaluation, they complained to the board, following which a revised key was sent.

According to a principal, the board had to send the revised key for one set. “Such a thing has never happened. The keys are sent when evaluation start. Obviously, teachers had to re-evaluate and upload the papers, so it was extra work,” said another principal.

With the Term 1 examination being multiple-choice questions, the students fill in the answers in an OMR sheet, and the evaluation takes place on the day of a test itself.

“As we were doing the evaluation, the performance of students was below average. Not a single student scored above 15 in the bundle I had. We kept insisting that the answer key is problematic, it needs to be rechecked,” said a teacher who is part of the evaluation at a private school. “Once we had finished, the coordinators came running and asked us to stop the evaluation. This was because the answer key issued by CBSE was wrong.”

The teacher added that CBSE then uploaded a new answer key. “We did the evaluation all over again. The student who got 11/40 earlier now scored 39/40. Just imagine if there was no human intervention in between!”

CBSE did not respond to the query on the matter.

Some principals also claimed there was a delay in sending the code for downloading and printing the question papers. “In my school, it was not a problem because just around 150 students took the exam. But in schools with over 300 students, it is a time-consuming process, adding to the stress,” said a principal.