Tips for acing the 2025 board examination

Preparations are on for the upcoming 10th and 12th Grade 2025 Board Examinations. All Central, State and Union Territories Examination Boards are expected to introduce competency questionnaires as per NEP 2020 for the first time in the theory (written) of SSLC (X) and 10+2 (XII).

Here are a few tips that enable a student of Grades X and XII (PUC) to score maximum marks in their Board Examinations.

Plan a self-study timetable: Once examinees get their date sheets, they must make a scientific plan to prepare for the examinations. Normally, the students prepare their daily lesson plan/revision according to the school/college timetable. It happens for many students that Saturdays / Sundays or holidays are no-timetable days. Students waste their prime time on non-academic matters. Remember the idiom ‘Practice makes a Man Perfect’. Allotment of personal time for revising the topics, themes, concepts, solving the previous years’ question papers, etc., is a good learning practice that enables the students to score maximum marks.

Refer to the subject and scope of the syllabus: All State / Union Territory / CBSE / ICSE and other Examination Boards have released the curriculum for the concerned year of examination. Schools or colleges have scheduled their annual lesson plans accordingly. It is a fact that the question paper setting committee of any Board do not give any questions out of the given syllabus or the scope of the syllabus. Textbooks published by NCERT, SCERT, and a few private publishers provide the syllabus for that particular year of examination. The students or parents are not aware of the syllabus. Let them contact their ward's subject teachers and obtain a copy of the syllabus. Those students preparing/revising the exam materials as per the syllabus for that year’s exam can score better marks.

Blue Print of the Board Question Paper, its marking scheme or pattern of question papers. In common practice, the concerned forms, such as blueprints, patterns of question papers, marking schemes, etc., are normally familiar to teachers or examiners. Students can also grab the details of such examination matters and score good marks. All the above documents and materials are available on various Examination Boards' websites.

For example, Karnataka State Board class 10 can download the KSEEB SSLC Blueprint 2025 PDF directly from its webpage. The Blueprint includes subject-wise names of the topics/chapters along with its mark’s weightage. Understanding the Blueprint or marking scheme will stimulate the candidate's confidence to write better in the Board Examinations. The subject-wise weightage allotted to each topic in all subjects can be downloaded by the students from the concerned Boards portals.

Time management skills: Using the given time during the examination is challenging for many students. Solving a previous year's questionnaire is a good experience for this practice. The first 15 minutes are allotted as question paper Reading time by all the Boards. But the questions will carry only marks, not the question-wise timings. The time allotted to attempt the whole question paper is printed on the top of the question papers. Many schools or state boards like Karnataka School Education conduct preparatory or pre-board Examinations to make students acquainted with time management skills. Research has proved that students who practise/solve previous years' question papers or attempt pre-finals can score better marks in the final exams.

Quizzing oneself is the strongest self-study technique. Self-examination is a good exercise that helps retention and comprehension. It includes setting up sure shot questions, sitting and writing the same questions following the time duration, assessing the self-written answers, etc., which will boost the student’s confidence and enable them to make temporary corrections.

(The writer is the Principal of Coorg Public School & PU College, Gonikoppal)