Telangana second year inter results: ‘A’ graders nos. up, despite tough papers

HYDERABAD: A 2.26 per cent dip in Telangana’s pass percentage notwithstanding, the number of students who put up a ‘A’ grade show in their second-year intermediate examination soared to 60.4% this year, revealed data released by the Telangana Board of Intermediate Education on Thursday. In 2018, only 57.28% of the candidates managed to secure the top grade.

Institutes attributed the increase in ‘A’ graders — with 75% or more marks — to many students sticking to their textbooks and not taking to guides or other reference material for preparation.



“This year, there were many unexpected questions, especially in Mathematics. Yet, students managed to attempt them correctly. That’s because we concentrated more on concepts, definition, formula and fundamentals. It helped students secure good marks,” said Ashok Kumar, academic dean of Narayana Group of Institutions.



Seconding this, students said that the textbooks helped them with strengthening their basic concepts, which ultimately led to better results. “While preparing for my first-year exam, I used a lot of reference material along with the textbooks. But that made me complacent as these material feed you ready-made answers and encourage learning by rote. When I started sticking to the textbook I realised that my basics were getting stronger. That gave me the confidence to attempt any kind of question,” said V Sai Akshitha, a second year intermediate student, who secured 972 marks.

These ‘A’ graders aside, as many as 65, 388 second-year students secured ‘B’ grade (more than 60% marks, but less than 75%) and 25,013 students secured ‘C’ grade (between 50% and 60% marks).

The first-year students’ report card, however, did not have too much to cheer about. Along with a drop in overall pass percentage — to 60.5% from last year’s 62.73% — the count of ‘A’ graders too took a beating as just about 52.1% candidates managed to secure the top grade when compared with 2018’s 54.82%. As many as 2,47,407 candidates cleared the first year exam this year. Academics said that these students have a chance to better their score in the improvement exam and correct the mistakes that they made during the earlier test.

“I am sure the number of ‘A’ graders will increase further after the improvement exam. They are more familiar with the exam format now and will have a better chance to get higher scores,” said A Satyanarayana, a lecturer.

Among first year students, 70,054 candidates secured ‘B’ grade while 33,449 candidates secured ‘C’ grade.

During the intermediate public exam 2019-20, 383 second-year students and 151 first-year students were caught cheating. The number was comparatively higher than 2018, when only 107 first-year and 197 second-year candidates were caught for malpractice.