CBSE exams begin; helpline, app on standby for students

Thousands of students will be appearing for the CBSE Class XII and Class X board examinations with the Class XII students writing their English paper on Thursday. A total of 59,014 Class XII candidates will appear from the Chennai region that comprises nine states and UTs including Tamil Nadu.

Mobile phones and calculators are banned from exam halls, but students are allowed to bring stationery – both blue and black pens allowed. Diabetic students will be allowed to bring food and a water bottle so that they can eat at regular intervals to manage blood glucose levels.
This year, CBSE biology group students have especially been a worried lot as the timetable has placed the biology exam (April 5) and the JEE (main) on April 2 close to each other. However, coaching centres say students are training for both exams which have very different formats. While the board exams have more comprehensive essay answers, preparations for JEE will be very different as it involves multiple choice questions.

Meanwhile, to make it easier for students to locate exam centres, the board has come out with the exam centre locator app which helps students to quickly trace the exam centre concerned on the basis of their roll numbers.

A student can easily find the address, images and geo location of the designated exam centre on the map and know how to reach. A student or a parent has to register once with their mobile number or email id to receive an OTP. This will help the student log on to the Centre Locator App which is also available for download on the CBSE website.

In terms of security arrangements, CBSE has a three-tier arrangement for checking which includes CBSE flying squads, squads from the directorate of education, Delhi and special observers.

There has been a considerable increase in the number of schools and exam centres this year compared to last year in the Chennai region.However, officials at the CBSE regional office did not divulge state-wise break up of the number of candidates appearing for the exams.

While preparations for the board exams have been on, this year, the focus seems to have been on the competitive exams for many. With the Joint Engineering Exam (JEE) and the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) around the corner, some students too acknowledged that their energies have been spent on gearing up for competitive exams.