Schools in Hyderabad have started their Summative Assessment – II exams for classes I to IX. However, class VIII students received an old pattern of General Science question paper for Physical Science and a new question paper pattern for Biology. The Education Department had previously announced that question patterns for classes VIII to X would be revised, but the class VIII students still received the old question paper pattern. Physical science teachers have criticized the board for failing to provide the correct question paper pattern for exams. They say that it is impossible to prepare question papers based on an old pattern from January when it was announced that the pattern would change.
Bhaskar Rathod, a science teacher from a private school, has said that the government had clearly stated that the question papers for Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies had changed. However, they only changed in part A, which is long-answer questions. There were choices, but they were only internal. The rest of the paper did not have choices, which confused students. Even after providing guidelines, the department officials failed to check the question paper before it was distributed.
Students were confused and frustrated by the old pattern of the General Science question paper. The Biology paper was in a new pattern, and the Physical Science paper was in another. This confusion wasted half of the time in explaining the pattern to the students. Teachers also got confused seeing the question papers. Improper monitoring has been blamed for this mistake.
Arun Rao, a class VIII student from a private school, said that most of the questions on the Physics part were very difficult. Shreya, a class VIII student from a government school, had a similar experience.
