Tamil Nadu: ‘Analytical questions’ hit Class 10 high scores as 94.5 per cent clear exam

CHENNAI: The number of high scorers has fallen by 60 per cent in the Class 10 state board exams results of which were announced on Wednesday. The number of students who scored above 450 (out of 500) has dropped from 1,61,370 students in 2017 to only 66,239 students this year. A total of 94.5 per cent of students cleared the Class 10 exams this year, data from the School Education Department revealed. This is a 0.1 per cent increase over last year. 

However, the number of students who failed has almost doubled. Last year, 20,404 students scored less than 175 marks while this year 38,682 students fared as poorly. This trend is similar to that seen in this year’s class 12 results, in which the number of high scorers had fallen to a tenth of last year’s figure.

The number of students, who scored above 480 too, has fallen to a quarter of the figures recorded last year. While 38,613 students scored above 480 in 2017, only 9,402 students scored in that range this year. 
Officials from Directorate of Government Examinations claim that this is a a result of the question paper being set with more analytical questions as opposed to having only questions from the end of book chapters.

Sivagangai district tops the state 
Sivagangai district had the highest pass percentage in the State at 98.5 per cent, followed by Erode (98.38 per cent) and Virudhunagar (98.26 per cent). Villupuram recorded the lowest pass percentage of 90.18 per cent.