‘A leaked paper can make huge difference’

NEWDELHI: Students, teachers and officials from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) seem divided over the damage that a paper, leaked an hour before the exam, can do.

A CBSE official on condition of anonymity said, “Of course it matters. In such a competitive world, even if a student gets one extra question right it could mean a lot. If some students got the question paper one hour before, they would be in a better position to answer and that is wrong.”

The official added that it was less about impact and more about violating rules of the board. “Why should someone open the question papers before the set time,” the official said.

For some like Vaibhav Garg, a Class 12 student at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, he felt that it could make a “big difference.”

“These days many people get 90-95%. So it all comes down to those last five marks. And even one mark can make a huge difference for DU cutoffs. If students would have gotten the paper an hour before the exam, they could have at least cleared any doubts they may have had. It doesn’t matter how many students got the leaked paper. Even if it is just 100 or 200 people, it could still shift the DU cutoffs,” he said.

However, most students agreed that the handwritten version of the paper would have cause more damage, as it was in circulation at least one day before the exam. “I got the handwritten version of the paper at 10pm the night before the exam from a friend, who said it was a practice paper. I solved it and felt confident. It was only the next day during the exam that I realized that it was the same paper. While I felt happy at first, I later realised that if I had got it, others would too,” said a student.