Day 1 delight for HSC students

Updated on: Thursday, February 24, 2011

Beaming students left HSC examination centres on Tuesday, satisfied with the ‘friendly’ first paper. All four sets of the English paper left examinees happy, with no trace of the panic caused recently by sudden changes in the schedules of some subjects.

“Almost all the questions in all four sets of the paper had similar questions, except for grammar questions and one or two passages. None of the sets were difficult though,” said Ashish Masand, a student of Jai Hind College, appearing for his examination at St Xavier’s College.

Parents, more anxious than their wards themselves, waited outside examination centres on Tuesday afternoon. “My son gets worried very easily so I came down to pick him up today. He hates the idea of me waiting for him outside the college gates but I’ll start worrying sitting at home,” said Sanchita Nachnani, outside HR College on Tuesday afternoon. A handful of parents there echoed similar sentiments.

Principals of various colleges agreed the exam went very smoothly. “Close to 1,800 students are appearing for the paper at our college and nobody complained about any problems on day one,” said Naresh Chandra, principal of Birla College in Kalyan.

However, some students at KC College told TOI that the Set B question paper was not clearly printed and students had to waste time writing more than half of a passage being dictated by the supervisor. “It was the second passage in the paper and we could not read a word of it except the first few lines,” said a student.

“I did not notice any problems when I went for a casual round during the exam. Later in the evening, I was informed some students did have an issue with one of the set as the printed matter was not clear. But it surely was not a major issue,” said Manju Nichani, principal of KC College.

But when contacted, HSC students who had received the Set B paper at other examination centres confirmed that they didn’t face any such problem in their papers. The revised time-table was also announced in some colleges to ensure students are not confused about the exam dates. The announcements came as the dates of the French, Pali and Urdu papers originally scheduled to be held on February 24 were suddenly shifted to February 23 a couple of weeks ago.

Marie Fernandes, principal of St Andrew’s College said, “Students go by whatever is given on the website and we didn’t want to take any chances, so I personally informed all our supervisors to announce this change in their respective classes.” She added that the Controller of Examinations of the areas got in touch with the principals of all examination centres under his jurisdiction asking them to make a formal announcement in each and every class for the benefit of students.

Day 1 delight for HSC students

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