15-mark bonus in SSC maths

The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education on Thursday announced that 15 marks would be given to all students for question number 6 in all the four sets of algebra and geometry papers in the ongoing SSC examination.

The decision was taken after verifying complaints received from students who said set ‘B’ of the algebra paper held on Tuesday and the geometry paper on Wednesday were more difficult than the other sets’A’, ‘C’ and ‘D’and the students who got the set would be hit hard.

The board’s decision to give 15 marks will mean that students will need to score only 11 marks in the rest of the paper to pass as both the algebra and the geometry papers are for 75 marks each. Last year, 30% of the candidates who appeared for SSC exams across the state had failed in Maths.

Students appearing for the exam have said the policy of having multiple sets tends to favour some candidates at the expense of others.

The board had introduced the multiple question sets for key subjects like English and Maths a couple of years ago in a bid to check malpractices. The idea was to ensure that students sitting to the right, left, front and rear of a candidate got different sets.

In a statement, SSC board secretary Vinay Dakshindas said the study board and the governing council of the board had scrutinised all the sets of the Maths questionnaire following complaints from students and various organisations.

“We found that the question papers were as per the prescribed structure and no questions were asked from outside the curricula.

Though there was not much difference in the difficulty level between the sets, they were found to be less parallel,” he said, adding that after taking into consideration all aspects, the Maths study board members and co-ordinators had recommended that full 15 marks be given to all students for question number 6 in all four sets of algebra and geometry.

“Due instructions have been given to examiners and moderators and injustice will not be done to any student,” e said. The board also said measures would be taken to ensure that the incident was not repeated.