Gujarat: ‘Howdy Modi?’ Class X students asked in exam

AHMEDABAD: From ‘Howdy Modi?’ to Chinese firecrackers, students’ knowledge and awareness were put to the test on several parameters in the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board Class X English exam on Thursday.
The board exams, which began on Thursday, saw five cases of copying in the Class X exams and nine in the Class XII exams.

In Ahmedabad city, one Class XII examinee was caught employing unfair means at Vishwa Vidyalaya, but before the exam began.In Ahmedabad rural, a Class X student was caught cheating using a mobile phone. A similar case was registered in Thangadh town of Surendranagar district. In Rajkot, a proxy exam-taker was caught writing the Class X exam.
Some 10.83 lakh students are taking the Class X board exams. About 1.19 lakh students are taking the Class XII (science, new course) exam while 23,000 are likely to take the old course exam. For Class XII (general stream), 5.27 lakh students are enrolled for the board exams.
Many rural centres had problems due to power cuts during the exam. Students TOI spoke to said the language paper for Class X, physics for Class XII (science) and accounts paper for Class XII (general) were easy and boosted theri confidence on the first day. All questions were from within the syllabus, they said.
“The physics paper was long but quite easy,” said Darshan Dave, a physics teacher at an Ahmedabad school.
The physics paper was a perfect balance between knowledge and application-based questions, according to Dhara Parekh, a Class XII student from St Xavier’s School. “A few questions from Part A and a few questions from Part B were tough but overall the paper was easy,” she added.
Last year’s event “Howdy Modi” made an appearance in the Class X exam paper, as children were asked to write a diary entry on the event as a volunteer. The other option for a diary entry was their experience being in the hot seat with Mr Amitabh Bachchan. They were also asked to write essay on “Chandrayaan II-A mission that made India proud” or “Online Vs offline shopping”.
In the letter writing section, they were to write an informal letter to a friend with an appeal to avoid Chinese firecrackers and celebrating a safe Diwali, while the second option was an email about a newly fitted percolation system and how it saves water.