Students breeze through language paper

S. Gayathri, daughter of a daily-wage labourer who stays in a one-room house, admits she was anxious at the start of the class XII higher secondary examination on Monday.

“I am relieved I wrote the Tamil-I paper well. I’m now better prepared to face the next exam,” says Gayathri, the first person in her family to study up to class XII.

She is among the over 53,000 students in the city who attempted the language-I paper on Monday, the first day of the plus-2 examination, after months of rigorous preparations and a slew of revision examinations.

“My family adjusted even as I stayed up late into the night studying, with the light turned on,” says Gayathri.

While students, by and large, walked out satisfied with their performance in the language paper, the initiatives taken by the Directorate of Government Examinations to minimise errors and curb malpractices have gone down well with both students and schools.

The new measures include introduction of a top sheet with student details such as name and registration number, and increase in the number of pages in the answer booklet to 38. Barcodes and students’ photographs have also been introduced.

A. Marzooka, who attempted the Tamil-I paper, says she found the paper easy. “The top sheet and additional sheets in the answer book were quite helpful. We only had to check the details and sign. The answer booklet will help us write the paper without any interruptions, especially when we attempt lengthy papers,” she says.

Anitha Daniel, headmistress, Kaligi Ranganathan Montford Matriculation Higher Secondary School, is also pleased with the new initiatives.

“Earlier, there was a possibility of students passing on additional sheets in the answer script. With the new booklet, chances of that are fewer,” she says.

B. Purushothaman, principal, Everwin Matriculation, says the students were briefed about the changes, and shown a sample of the exam sheet during morning assembly.

Several students say the language papers were mostly simple. The Hindi-I paper, says Rhea Nair, was lengthy, but easy. “Last year’s question paper was much tougher,” she says.

Sangeetha Priya, who wrote French-I, says she finished the paper an hour ahead of time. Except for some one-mark questions, the Tamil paper too was not difficult, says K. Yuvarani.

K. Devarajan, director of government examinations says the examination went off smoothly at all centres. “Only six candidates have been caught for malpractices,” he says.

Class X examinations under the ICSE board too began on Monday with the English language paper.

“This is the first time the Council has introduced unique identification numbers for each student. They had given us videos to orient the students beforehand,” says Deivanai V., principal, Chettinad Hari Shree Vidyalayam.