NEW DELHI : Students appearing for the Central Board of Secondary Education examinations will no longer need to attach supplementary sheets as the Board has increased the number of pages in the answer-books for Classes XII and X from this year.

"The pages in the main answer-books have been increased from 40 to 48 for Class XII and from 32 to 40 for Class X. Students invariably ask for supplementary sheets and this interrupts their concentration and writing flow. It also involves signing of supplementary sheets by invigilators which is time-consuming," said CBSE Chairman Ashok Ganguly at a press conference here on Wednesday.

Mr. Ganguly also spoke about internal assessment in mathematics, restructured science practicals and revised scheme of its evaluation that would come into effect for Class X from March.Internal assessment in mathematics will be 20 per cent that will be awarded on the basis of performance of students in mainly three aspects — evaluation of activities (10 marks), project work (05 marks) and continuous evaluation through formative and summative test (05 marks).

Another new feature will be the optical character reading (OCR) sheets that Class X students will use during their science practicals.

The students will be given OCR sheets comprising 30 multiple-choice questions (MCQ) and would be required to choose the right answer of the four options by darkening the circles. These booklets will be evaluated through scanning.

On the revised scheme of annual assessment in science and technology, Mr. Ganguly said: "The theory examination will comprise 60 marks, while practicals will be for 40 marks that will be divided into two components. A hands-on school based year-end examination that will be internally assessed and a practical skill based MCQ written paper for one and a half hours that will be evaluated externally."

The Board has also decided to retain the "cool off" time that was introduced last year where students are given the question paper along with the sealed answer-books at 10-15 a.m., a good 15 minutes before the start of the examination. They will fill up the cover page details like their roll numbers and utilise the time to carefully read the question paper and plan their answers.

More than 12 lakh students will take the Class XII and Class X examinations that will begin on March 1 and 2 respectively. This is nearly a lakh more than last year when there were 454,480 candidates for Class XII and 647,992 for Class X.

Asked why the grading system introduced for Class IX from this year failed to take off, Mr. Ganguly said the Board was ready with the project and will implement it the moment they get instructions.

"We have presented our proposal to a high-level committee. They will scrutinise it and give us their feedback. We are ready and could initiate the grading system for Class IX from 2008 once we get the nod," he added

On the recently launched educational portal — Sakshat — that aims at providing solutions to all learning needs of students, Mr. Ganguly said attempts were being made to make it 24x7 instead of confining interactive sessions between experts and children for a few hours between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m.

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