Saturday 21 / February / 2026
For many years, success in CBSE board examinations depended largely on how well students memorised their textbooks. Definitions, formulas, and standard answers from NCERT formed the core of exam preparation. However, in recent years, CBSE’s increasing focus on competency-based assessment has significantly changed the nature of board exams. As a result, many students now leave examination halls feeling uncertain, despite months of sincere preparation. According to teachers, the main issue is no longer syllabus coverage but students’ difficulty in applying what they have learned.
During my interactions with students outside institutional settings, many of them approached me in my capacity as an educationist and shared their concerns. These conversations, which took place beyond classrooms and schools, revealed a common pattern. Students repeatedly expressed that despite sincere preparation and conceptual clarity, the examination questions appeared unfamiliar and confusing. Their experiences clearly highlighted the widening gap between preparation and performance.
CBSE has gradually increased the weightage of case-based, assertion-reason, and situation-based questions to assess conceptual understanding rather than rote memory.
While this shift aims to promote deeper learning, it has also made exams feel challenging for many students. Although they know the concepts, they often struggle when these concepts are presented in real-life or unfamiliar contexts. One of the first challenges students face is the length of competency-based questions. These often include detailed paragraphs, data, or case studies that require careful reading. Under exam pressure, students tend to assume that a long question demands a long answer. In reality, CBSE marking schemes award marks for specific points, not elaborate explanations. As a result, students waste valuable time writing lengthy responses that do not earn additional marks.
Teachers also observe that many students lose marks due to misreading questions rather than lack of knowledge. Competency-based questions use action words such as analyse, justify, compare, or evaluate, each demanding a specific type of response. In the rush to begin writing, students often overlook these instructions and produce answers that miss the actual requirement. By the time they recognise the error, time and marks have already been lost.
Another major issue is students’ reluctance to move away from textbook language. Many believe that reproducing NCERT sentences guarantees marks. Consequently, they write theoretical answers without connecting them to the given situation. Examiners, however, value relevance and clarity more than memorised content. Answers that fail to address the context inevitably lose marks. Time pressure further intensifies the problem.
Competency-based questions require time to read, interpret, and plan. Students often realise midway that their answer is misaligned but lack sufficient time to correct it. This is especially noticeable in subjects such as Science, Social Science, and Business Studies.
Senior CBSE examiners point out that clarity, structure, and presentation are the first aspects they notice. Legible handwriting, correct question numbering, underlined keywords, labelled diagrams, and step-wise solutions make evaluation easier. In contrast, vague paragraphs, poor organisation, or cluttered presentation reduce the chances of full marks, even when the content is correct. As one examiner observed, most students understand the topic but struggle to apply it.
Their answers may be correct in theory but fail to respond to what the question actually asks. This gap between knowledge and application is where marks are lost. In a nutshell, this gap cannot be bridged by students alone. Students need consistent exposure to competency-based questions throughout the academic year, not just before examinations.
At the same time, teachers require systematic training to shift from memory-based teaching to application-oriented practices. Unless teaching methods evolve, students will continue to feel unprepared. Therefore, regular practice with case-study questions, careful attention to keywords, brief answer planning, and a focus on real-life application are essential. Ultimately, while studying well remains important, knowing how to use what one has studied has become far more crucial in today’s CBSE examinations.
* The writer is a Lecturer of English
