Mita Mukherjee

The first day of the 2024 ICSE (Class X) examinations was conducted successfully throughout the country and students across institutions found the paper “easy” , the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) said.

On Wednesday, the students wrote their English language paper (English Paper I). More than two lakh examinees wrote the test in the country.

The CISCE had earlier announced that a certain percentage of analytical and critical thinking questions will be introduced in ICSE from this year.

 Most schools today reported that students found the paper “balanced”, “easy” and all “within the syllabus questions”, Sangeeta Bhatia, deputy secretary of CISCE said after the examination.

“The council had announced its decision to gradually increase the number of analytical and application-based questions in ICSE and ISC from this year in keeping with the recommendations of the NEP. The ICSE exams began today. Students had no problems with the paper, according to reports that we received from schools. The council had said that the pattern of a certain percentage of questions in all subjects will be different this time. After the end of today’s ICSE exam, feedback from students revealed that most examinees found the paper balanced and easy. This was our intention. We want to change the system. But we didn’t want to shock the system. We want to change the system gradually. ,” Bhatia told EducationWorld after today’s exam.

The council had published specimen papers for the 2024 board exams and schools were asked to refer to the council’s sample questions while they set the questions of their internal exams.

Most schools used the sample papers as practice-questions apart from using them in the internal exams.

“ Students were asked to practice the sample questions several times in class. This familiarized our students with the new pattern and helped them to answer the questions in today’s paper without difficulty,” said Reverend Rodney Borneo, principal of St. Augustine’s Day School, Shyamnagar in West Bengal.

Sujoy Biswas, principal of Rammohan Mission High School, in Kolkata said feedback from examinees from his school revealed that they found the paper “easy”.  “There is a change in the system. But the  transition is very smooth. We were happy to see our examinees coming out of examination halls with smiling faces,” Biswas said.