The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education has decided to award full marks to students for the question in the 2023 Madhyamik (Class X) math paper which had created confusion among examinees as the board had not provided graph paper.

Students who have attempted the question and have done the calculations correctly on the answer sheet will be given full marks, Ramanuj Ganguly, the board president, told EducationWorld on Monday.

The question concerned carried four marks.

On March 2, the day when the math paper was held, examinees who were given the Bengali version of the question paper had got confused when they saw that in question 15(ii) they were asked to draw ogive graph on graph paper, but no graph paper was attached with the answer sheet.

In the English version, however, there was no such instruction. At every centre where students answered the Bengali version of the  question paper, there was confusion as students didn’t know where they should do the computation and drawing.  Later, the invigilators advised them to do the computation and drawing on the answer script itself.

In Madhyamik, mathematics is a compulsory subject for every student who writes the Class X school leaving exam. As many as 698,628 candidates have written the test this year. Majority of the students are from state- aided schools and write the test in Bengali using the Bengali version of the question paper every year.

Admitting the confusion created among students because of not supplying the graph paper, Ganguly said that the board will take appropriate measures to ensure that students don’t suffer.

“Students will not suffer for no fault of theirs. No mark will be deducted for not drawing the ogive graph on graph paper. Every student who has attempted the question and has done the calculations correctly will be given four full marks,” Ganguly told EducationWorld.

Several students had complained that the absence of the graph paper had left them confused because they had been taught by their teachers in class to use graph paper for drawing the ogive graph. Graph paper was supplied to them even during the schools’ internal exams and in the pre-board tests.

Ganguly, however,  said that teachers who had set the question paper and also the moderators had not mentioned that the graph paper would have to be supplied.