CBSE class 12 Exam Analysis: ‘This year’s paper was rated as easier than the previous one’

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) conducted the Math exam on March 9, 2024. The three-hour paper was from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm. Students were given 15 minutes – from 10:15 am to 10:30 am to read the questions to understand what the examiner was asking.

The question paper was for 80 marks and divided into five sections. Each section was compulsory but had an internal choice.

Section A had 18 MCQs and two assertion-reason-based questions of 1 mark each.

Section B had 5 very short answer-type questions of 2 marks each.

Section C had 6 short answer-type questions of 3 marks each.

Section D had 4 long answer-type questions of 5 marks each.

Section E had 3 sources based-case based-passage-based/integrated units of assessment of 4 marks each with sub-parts.

Suman Saluja, PGT Math at Apeejay School, Pitampura, who gave the overall assessment of the paper said that sets II and III were straightforward. “This was because primarily most questions were derived from NCERT, with solutions requiring minimal steps or even a single word,” she shared and added that the question paper was not lengthy; “the questions didn’t have numerous calculation steps”.

Here’s the detailed analysis of the paper.

·         Many questions were directly from NCERT. For those that were not NCERT-based; the syllabus served as the foundational material.

·         It was an 80-mark paper. Section-wise, the MCQs were easy to handle.

·         All sections were considered easy, although case-based questions might have seemed moderate to some students. However, the overall difficulty level was easy.

·         The three sets of the paper were almost identical, with one or two questions varying, ensuring coverage of all topics.

·         For the probability section, while one set included a probability distribution question as a second step, overall, case-based scenarios were similar across sets.

·         Students found the paper to be good and felt it went extremely well, comparing favourably to the previous year.

·         They had sufficient time to revise.

·         The students said that this year’s paper was rated as easier than last year’s.