Letter writing woes at Madhyamik

Mou Chakraborty,
Kolkata, February 23, 2007
Students taking the Madhyamik examination today were stumped by one of the questions that appeared in the second language English exam.
The bone of contention today among examinees and their guardians was question no. 9 – the ‘letter writing’ section, carrying 12 marks. While the question failed to instruct to whom the examinees would address the letter to, it left no doubt that they could definitely send their grievances to the WBBSE.
There was confusion among many students and they had to wait for instructions as to what they had to do. “At first I thought I will write the letter without addressing it to anyone but then we cannot write a letter without addressing it to someone. I really did not know what to do until our invigilator helped us. It was really confusing,” said Himanghu Raptan, a student of Bijoynagar High School.
The board however has admitted the mistake. “It is definitely a slip on our part. Minutes after the exam started it was brought to our notice. We immediately informed all the regional offices to instruct the schools to tell the students that they could address the letter to anyone they wanted,” said Ujjal Basu, president of West Bengal Board of Secondary Education.
“I have spoken to the students of around 36 schools today and none of them reported about any problem in letter writing. I was amazed to see that most of them wrote the letter to a friend because it was compatible with the theme, that is writing about visiting a fair,” he added.
Teachers did not agree and felt the mistake in the question would confuse a lot of students in the districts. “Many students in Kolkata were confused and to think of the district students who are mostly weak in English, we can only imagine how confusing it was for them. We really do not know how a question goes for print without any instructions. What were the moderators and paper setters doing?” asked Subhankar Bandhyopadhyay, general secretary of Secondary Teachers & Employers Association.
The feedback from the districts was not very encouraging. “Since the letter did not have any instruction so the students kept on asking us whether they would write a formal letter or informal letter. The students were utterly confused,” said Biswajit Poddar Shara Boys, New Barrackpore.
The board has said that it will find out whether it was a printing error or the error of the moderators and paper setters and has ensured that the students will not suffer. “During the head examiners meeting the matter will be discussed and it will be ensured that the examiners do not penalise the students who did not understand whom to address the letter,” said Basu.
mou.hindustantimes@yahoo.com