The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on March 23, 2026, conducted the Political Science exam. Around 18.5 lakh students are appearing for the CBSE Class XII Board exams this year. The exams for the 2025-26 academic session began on February 17, 2026, and form part of a larger Board exam cycle that includes more than 43 lakh students from Classes X and XII combined.
For Class XII alone, the exams are being conducted at 7,574 centres across the country. A total of approximately 18,59,551 candidates have registered for the Class XII exams this year, including over 10.2 lakh boys and nearly 8.3 lakh girls. The exams will continue until April 10, 2026.
The Political Science paper was for 80 marks; the three-hour paper was structured into 30 questions across five sections (A-E). The students were also given 15 minutes, from 10:15 am to 10:30 am, to thoroughly read the question paper to understand what was being asked of them. All sections were compulsory.
Section A: Questions 1-12 were MCQs of 1 mark each
Section B: Questions 13-18 were very short questions of 2 marks each
Section C: Questions 19-23 were long questions of 4 marks each; there was internal choice in two
Section D: Questions 24-26 were picture, map, and passage questions and had to be answered accordingly
Section E: Questions were long questions of 6 marks each; there was internal choice in all these questions
According to Ms Praveen Kumari, Political Science Teacher at Apeejay School, Pitampura, the paper was not very lengthy and was as per the CBSE pattern. “The good part was that most of the questions asked were direct, making it easy for students. The picture-based/cartoon-based questions are normally in the MCQ format, but this year, the CBSE deviated from the format here and asked direct questions,” the educator said.
All three sets of the question papers were almost the same. “Map identification was the easiest. A few questions for 4 marks and 6 marks were competency-based. To answer these, the students needed to have a thorough understanding and knowledge of the topic,” she said in conclusion.