CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) introduced a significant change for students who would appear for their board exam next year. The difference was announced back in January, regarding Mathematics subject. More information can be obtained from the CBSE website, http://cbse.nic.in/ .
CBSE has announced that the students in class 10 in the batch ending in 2020 March will be able to opt between two-levels of Mathematics in the Board exams. The move was made to make the exams less stressful and to optimize the assessment as per the future accomplishments of the students, which are the students desire to pursue mathematics as a subject after secondary school.
The change was welcomed by many for the students-centric approach but also caused a lot of misunderstanding. One misunderstanding that arose immediately was whether students have to appear in two-levels of maths exam instead of one.
In the circular, given by CBSE, it is mentioned clearly that there will not be two exams. The two-levels will be Mathematics-Basic and Mathematics-Standard, and the students will have to choose one from any two.
The difficulty of the Mathematics-Standard exam will be the same as the actual exam, and the Mathematics-Basic exam will be easier compared to the Standard level.
The thought behind introducing the two-levels of the exam is that several students do not study mathematics after class 10 and hence need not be tested for the same skill as those who would pursue mathematics on superior levels.
The standard level will be useful for students who wish to opt for Mathematics at the senior secondary level, and basic level will be useful for students who are not keen on pursuing mathematics at a higher level.
The students who take the standard level exam and fail in the exam will be allowed to appear or write in the compartment exam for a basic level or standard level. The students taking the basic level exam can appear only in the compartment exam only for basic level.