Students across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry began their Plus Two board examinations on Friday with the language paper.
As part of the changes in the examination pattern, students attempted a single combined paper for language instead of two separate papers.
Nearly 8.61 lakh students took the exam across 2,944 centres. In Chennai alone, 49,419 students wrote the exam in 158 centres. There was an increase of 150 centres this year.
Around 2,400 children with special needs also took the exams.
The students will similarly be writing a combined paper for English on Tuesday.
In the new examination pattern which has been implemented this year for the Plus Two exams, students will write papers for 100 marks for two-and-a-half hours.
‘Easy paper’
Shaam Karthik, a student of MCTM school, said that the Tamil paper was easy. “People who had prepared thoroughly would have had little trouble in finishing the paper on time,” he said.
K. Gomathy, a student of the Lady Sivaswami Iyer Girls Higher Secondary School, said that despite they being the first batch of Class XII to write a combined language paper, the exam pattern wasn’t too hard to crack.
“The Tamil paper was easy. We have been told that there is a change in pattern in the objective questions section and are anticipating this to take effect for the non-language papers,” she added.
The Directorate of Government Examinations (DGE) had announced earlier this year that the multiple choice questions asked in the objective section would be replaced with other formats.
P. Saravanan, a teacher, too said that the paper mirrored what the students and teachers had anticipated and provided an easy start to the examinations.
Flying squads
Nearly 4,000 flying and standing squads had been constituted to ensure smooth conduct of examinations.
For the first paper, there was only one case of malpractice reported, by a private candidate from Chennai.
Minister for School Education K.A. Sengottaiyan visited the examination centre at the Government Higher Secondary School, Thoraipakkam and inspected the arrangements made for the exams.