‘Class X English paper was challenging ’

Comprehension passage question kicks up a row

Teachers and students of Class X in CBSE schools have raised concerns about a particular portion of the English Term 1 board exam paper on Saturday.

The exam was in the multiple choice question format for 40 marks which students had to take up in 90 minutes, as part of a new format this year.

“Many students said that the reading comprehension passage as well as the questions that followed were beyond their thinking capacity and that it was ambiguous. Several students were flustered by the difficulty of this section and this affected them while completing the rest of the paper on time,” said the head of a CBSE school in the city. He said the content of the reading comprehension passage, which spoke about children, discipline and families, was inappropriate and questioned how it had found a place in an exam paper. One of the questions based on the passage asked students to identify if the writer was a “male chauvinist pig”.