Blog: Scoring 100% In English - As If!

I am almost on the verge of a "cytokine storm" not because I contracted the coronavirus that my immune system sent, but when I discovered that this year, the number of students who scored more than 95% on class 12 board exams CBSE doubled from 17,000 last year to 38,000 this year. A head of the Delhi University university casually commented that there was no difference as they will not admit anyone below 97%.

But wait, last year, I found out that the limit for Political Science at Delhi University is 99, yes 99! Having struggled at the Master level with this issue, I am amazed that the limit may be similar to that of the more exact sciences. I suppose, theoretically, people can maximize science jobs on the assumption that you are right or wrong, and many do it all right. But how is that done in an inexact social science?

I belong to a generation in which, if you obtained more than 80% (what in those days of leisure we call 5 pointers under the ICSE exam), you were very smart and better to avoid it, since it was very boring. A Delhi school specialized in producing this class, half a dozen a year or so, avoiding the teaching of the "arts" (such as Political Science) so that the school's overall average was not lowered by those commoners who could not understand the connection between the falling apple and gravity. My school, among others, would collect the riff-raff dropped on the ninth standard in order to complete their education.

Most of us were quite satisfied with a first division, which meant I was over 60%, enough to qualify for an interview at one of Delhi's top universities. And who knows, she might even come in if she had brilliantly done her chosen subject (like 75%) and impressed the teachers in the interview.

The introduction of the All India Senior Secondary Board in the 1970s and 10 + 2s ended all of this. Suddenly, instead of writing leisurely 600-word essays in the Indus Valley, the students became memory machines, which could tell you the number of columns in the thousand-column temple of Hanamakonda (Telangana). It is said that even the math answers could be stormed and thrown out during the final exam.

I must confess that it took me a while to realize what this upper secondary genius phenomenon was. At first, I was completely baffled when a very stable prodigy from a very nice but equally stable couple performed well in the 1990s. Of course, he was a product of the new age license plate life system. 

This begins when children are 4 or 5 years old and continues as a great vitamin supplement until the person manages to qualify for civilians (a horrible term currently in vogue for civil services), gets a scholarship, joins an IT company, or whatever is. 

This investment in the child is due to a) that the parents are very well but do not have time to teach the child due to the gym, work, kitty party, etc., or b) middle class families who do not have time either. from having to work, cook, clean and take care of in-laws.

In the BCBSE era (before CBSE), a tutor was like a mentor, a college professor who was there to guide you through your time in college, and hopefully impart some knowledge that would be useful for your degree. A person who discussed world affairs in the context of his subject. Of course, there were those matronly guys, our school teachers, who did help the underprivileged students, but that's not what today's tutors are.

From NDTV News