II PU Students in Karnataka to get grace marks for Physics
The Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board (KSEAB) on Sunday issued a circular that the students who appeared for the II PU physics board examination on March 7, will be awarded grace marks after a request from the majority of the students.
This decision comes in response to an online petition initiated by II PU physics students, urging KSEAB to grant them grace marks due to the challenging and intricate Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs).
The fake and misleading circular dated March 10 read, “The board decided to award grace marks to all students who attempted non-blueprint MCQs in Part A of the paper. Students who skipped the questions will not be given any grace marks.”
Speaking to TNIE, Gopalkrishna HN, in-charge and Director of PUC exams made it clear that the circular was fake and not issued by the Board. “We have heard that the circular notes that the department will be awarding grace marks. But we have not taken any decision as of yet. All the questions that appeared in the paper were part of the NCERT textbooks. I want to emphasise that the circular is not the official version of KSEAB,” he stated.
The online petition quickly garnered over 70,054 signatures, prompting authorities to take action. Students remarked that while the numerical problems were straightforward and concise, the MCQs were not aligned with the syllabus and posed significant difficulty.
The online petition received over 70,054 signatures in no time, compelling the authorities to act. The students opined that though the numerical problems were simple and to the point, the MCQs were not part of the syllabus, and were very difficult to crack. “…Please don’t try to build castle in the air by saying the board will conduct 3 exams a year. You can attend the next one. We cannot write another exam while competitive exams are being conducted parallelly. The board had clearly mentioned that the questions should not be ambiguous. But the board itself disregarded its guidelines…,” read the petition.
It was noted by students that the MCQs resembled questions found in JEE/NEET entrance exams. Consequently, the Board decided not to grant grace marks to all students who attempted non-blueprint MCQs in Part A of the paper. However, the Board clarified that students will not receive any grace marks.
A student from Bengaluru said that he has been working very hard for the past two years to score well on the boards, which would help him get a good Karnataka Common Entrance Test (KCET) score, but the problems were not solvable, and some were from the deleted parts of the syllabus.
“The questions that appeared in MCQ were part of the JEE/NEET entrance. Maybe students who go for coaching would have been able to solve them, but what about people who never attended any coaching class and depend only on handbooks and NCERT? Every single mark will decide our future,” wrote Nisha Mary, a student from Bengaluru.