Summary:
CHENNAI: Questions on mother of Dravidian languages, Thiruvallur Day, Ambedkar and Perumal in Class X Tamil paper proved to be tough for students.A toughie right ahead would bring down the confidence level of students, say teachers and parents. Among them, 5.5 lakh were from Tamil-medium, according to an official release from the government. "This is a precursor to what students will be taking up in the forthcoming academic year under the revised curriculum," said a member of the curriculum revision committee.A total of 9.6 lakh students, including 50,700 in Chennai, attended the exam in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry . "Though none of the questions were out of syllabus, many were open-ended, anomalous and only those who are thorough with the entire textbook will be able to score more than 90," said a Tamil teacher from Thanjavur , requesting anonymity.It was the one, two and four-mark questions that many found challenging, he added.While students had expected more book-back questions, many were actually from portions which they did not expect and they were presented in a slightly different manner, said Deepa, a student from a private school in Chennai.Consequently, students were forced to spend more time on these questions and they were unable to focus more on the lengthy ones.Slow-learners, who largely depend on objective and short questions, might find it difficult to clear the paper unless instructions are given to the evaluators not to be harsh while awarding scores, say teachers.However, this is unlikely as the government faced criticisms from various quarters last year for awarding centums to thousands of students in language papers..