The Hindu : National : Apex court nod for objective tests in medical exams

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Tuesday, Oct 21, 2008
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Apex court nod for objective tests in medical exams

J. Venkatesan

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday approved the Central Board of Secondary Education’s proposal to have objective type tests in both the preliminary and final examinations for filling the 15 per cent all India quota for admissions to medical/dental courses in 2009.

A Bench consisting of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice P. Sathasivam approved the modified scheme, evolved by the CBSE, after it faced problems in the present system of examinations, viz preliminary tests with objective type and final tests with non-objective type.

In its application the CBSE submitted that the non-objective type evaluation was most time consuming after the conduct of preliminary tests. Further due to paucity of time left for counselling after the declaration of result, “it becomes very difficult to conduct both the rounds of counselling within the stipulated time limit.” It further said “due to the introduction of non-objective type pattern of examination, not only are the candidates under tremendous stress, but there is also inevitably a large element of subjectivity involved in the evaluation.”

The CBSE said that in the light of the difficulties experienced during the last five years, there was an urgent need to review the examination system to remove the flaws of the existing system without affecting the quality of the candidates selected. A high-level committee had recommended that both the preliminary and final examinations should be conducted with objective type questions.

The preliminary examination will have 200 questions and each question will carry four marks for a right answer and a negative mark for a wrong answer. The final examination will have 120 objective type questions and will be assessed in the same manner as the preliminary examination.

The application sought a direction to permit the CBSE to conduct the all-India pre-medical and dental entrance examination for 2009 as per the revised scheme.

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