The High School Certificate (HSC) examinations for the year 2013-14 would begin from February 25, School and Mass Education Minister Rabi Narayan Nanda announced here on Tuesday. The examinations would end on March 8, he said.
This year, the examinations assume significance as the Government has decided to replace the existing division system and to put an all-pass grade system in the Central Board of Secondary Education patterns.
Sources at the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), Cuttack, which conducts the HSC examinations, said the students would be awarded grades basing on their marks. Students securing between 91 and 100 marks would get A grade while students securing between 81 and 90 and 71 and 80 would be given B and C grades, respectively. The answer sheets would be evaluated till the ninth point grade down to I.
The other six grades are: D (61-70), E (51-60), F (41-50), G (31-40), H (21-30) and I (11-20). Besides, a new question pattern comprising both subjective and objective type questions would be introduced from this year, a BSE official said.
While 50 per cent of the questions would be multiple-choice questions, the remaining would be subjective questions requiring long answers. Answers of objective questions would be evaluated through an optical mark recognition (OMR) method.