First, the board said a few days ago that the exam will be as per official CBSE 2020 syllabus, and not NCERT books. And now they are saying that questions papers in CBSE 2020 board exam for 10th and 12th classes will be as per sample papers, and not syllabus.
If you are confused by the googly, don’t be. This is what has happened. First mark these dates in calendar that CBSE will conduct class 10, 12 board exams from February 15, 2020, to March 31, 2020. The practicals are scheduled from January 1, 2020, to February 7, 2020.
Central Board of Secondary Education has released a notification with this latest announcement. The board is saying that they had published the latest curriculum in the month of April this year. And sample papers were published in September.
In the curriculum, that was published in April, CBSE had published board exam design and blueprint. But that design is old. Since that month, the officials have made some changes to the exam. Keeping the changes that have happened since April, CBSE had designed the sample papers, and then they were uploaded to tell the students what the exam will be like.
A few days ago the board had published a notification saying that NCERT books have certain sections in the form of colored boxes which say that those topics are not included; but that is not true and that students should refer the official curriculum for studying for board exams.
Though published with the right intentions of informing students in time, the board has probably ended up confusing students.
Several years ago when internet was not in the hands of every person, and children seldom had access to it, every student relied on what they were taught in schools, and the sample paper books they could buy from the market, or from CBSE itself.
Now things have changed. Students directly go to official websites to get syllabus, sample papers, everything. As a result, a number of students have downloaded the CBSE curriculum already from the official website, and so have teachers and have been teaching as per that only.
Moreover the NCERT textbooks are officially recommended by the board. So all students study from NCERT books only. In fact for them, NCERT is like the bible.
But now with the two notifications from CBSE, students are very confused. And now this new notification says do not refer curriculum, refer the sample papers. With such a short time left for the board exams, students are a little worried now about what is going on.
Simply put, the matter is this.
Students are first and foremost advised to go to cbseacademic.nic.in, click on sample question paper, then click class XII or X and go through all sample papers and their marking schemes. Using them, they can get the exact idea of what the exam will be like. CBSE has asked students to go through all sample papers as the final point of reference.
The books to be referred are still NCERT. Only ignore the part that says this will not be a part of the syllabus, as questions can come from those parts too. As far as the curriculum is concerned, students should study all topics given in it, but regarding the design or blueprint, consider the latest sample papers only.
