The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : PU examination gets under way in State

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 18, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

PU examination gets under way in State

Staff Reporter

Students happy with extra time given to go through question paper

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Answering questions: Students appearing for the second pre-university examination at a centre in Bangalore on Monday.

Bangalore: While some students found the Chemistry examination tougher and lengthier than in previous years, others said that the Business Studies paper on Monday was just as they expected.

Yet all of them agreed, almost unanimously, that the extra 15 minutes given to them to go through the question paper and calm their nerves, served its purpose and helped them strategise or analyse their approach to the paper.

Smooth start

The second-year pre-university examination being conducted in 774 examination centres across the State went off smoothly with students appearing for Business Studies and Chemistry papers in the morning session, and Psychology and Education in the afternoon session. On Monday, 5.73 lakh students were scheduled to appear, and 26 students were debarred for malpractices.

More time

For the first time the duration of the examination was increased from three hours to three hours and fifteen minutes. This seems to have worked well, and students said it gave them more time to plan how they would work towards answering the paper.

Shreshta M., a Science student, said it helped with his Chemistry paper because he used that time to plan what section he would attempt first. This is also the first time that the ten marks that were previously devoted to internal assessment were converted to a different section. “There was no problem with that, and we weren’t really nervous about it because we were provided model questions for that section,” he said.

Rajat Subramaniam, a student of K.L.E College, said the Chemistry paper was tougher than expected. “Compared to the last three years’ question papers, this one was exceptionally tough. The 15 minutes were a boon because it helped me strategise,” he said, as he took time off while studying for the Kannada paper scheduled for Tuesday.

‘Positive response’

Speaking to The Hindu, S.G. Hegde, Commissioner, Pre-University Education, said, “We have got a very positive response from all quarters regarding the 15-minute extension. This was brought in to de-stress the students, and it has worked very well going by all the response we have got so far.”

26 debarred

Twenty-six students were debarred on the first day of the examination. Bidar with eight and Bijapur with 6 had the highest number of malpractice cases, while they also occurred in seven other districts including Dharwad, Belgaum, Tumkur, Haveri, Kolar and Mysore.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka