Rise in ISC 90% achievers, board plans to hike critical-thinking questions by 40%
Times of India | 1 May 2025
Kolkata: The pass percentage of this year's ISC exams at 99.02% is slightly higher than last year's by 0.82% and could provide students from CISCE-affiliated schools an edge over those from other boards. The state higher secondary board and CBSE are yet to announce their results.
The high pass percentage has been further reinforced by a large number of students scoring more than 90% in the aggregate. Principals and teachers attributed the high scores to competency-based and high-order thinking questions. The Council increased the weightage of competency-based and higher-order thinking questions from 10% last year to 25% this year. "It is planned that the weightage for application-based and high-order critical thinking questions will be 40% for both exams from next year. The aim is to ensure that learning is based on application, where students use their critical mind and creativity to write answers," Emmanuel told TOI. School principals feel that though the competency-based questions in each paper this year were tricky, the students were better equipped to tackle those questions as they were trained to think.
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In La Martiniere for Girls, out of 162 examinees, 74% of students scored above 90%. At Modern High School for Girls, 87% out of 154 students scored above 90%. Similarly, at Future Foundation School, 54% of 98 students scored similarly, as did 41.5% of 123 students at Calcutta Boys' School. In Delhi Public School, New Town, 62.5% of 288 examinees scored above 90%. At Heritage, 43.4% out of 221 students scored more than 90%, and 36.4% of 66 students similarly at Rammohan Mission High School.
School principals said this year, students in the 90% club are higher than last year. "This year, 120 students scored more than 90%, which also increased the school average to 92%. Last year, the school average was 87.9% with 95 students scoring more than 90%," said Rupkatha Sarkar, principal of La Martiniere for Girls. According to Modern High School for Girls principal Damayanti Mukherjee, the number of students scoring above 90% marks is much higher than last year. "The school's average score is 94.6, which is also higher," added Mukherjee."The documents and specimen CISCE shared with schools really helped us build those skills," said Rahee Sarkar of Modern High School for Girls.
The Heritage School Principal Seema Sapru said, "This time, children were aware that there was a new pattern coming in. The sample questions were sent to us quite early, so they got time to prepare for it. This year, a lot of training was given to the children, and the council arranged a lot of training for the teachers, too"
Shoujasdipta Das from Modern English Academy, Barrackpore, said, "Some questions caught me off guard in the exam hall, but our training in analysis helped me get through." Sydney Francis Menezes, in charge of La Martiniere for Boys, said the hard work and motivation of students and teachers are behind the good scores of the students. Principal of Rammohan Mission School Sujoy Biswas said, "Students have understood the need to read between the lines so that concepts can be built properly."