Where Class 12 students lose marks in Mathematics

The lowest-scoring chapter was Continuity And Differentiability: students scored 36% of the marks on its questions, against 44% across the whole paper.

What examiners look for: Marks here come for each step of the method. Write the formula, substitute, simplify and state the answer with a reason or unit; a correct method with a slip still earns most of the marks.

Students scored 52% on 2-mark questions but only 16% on 4-mark questions, which made up 24% of all the marks lost.

What examiners look for: Long answers are marked step by step. Plan the answer before writing, cover every part the question asks for (a), (b), (c), and show the working: each correct step earns its own mark.

No answer was found for 7.9% of the questions, and these blanks made up 20% of the marks lost. (This includes answers we could not locate on the sheet, for example where the question number was missing.)

What examiners look for: CBSE board papers have no negative marking, so a blank answer is the only sure zero. Attempt every question, and write the question number clearly next to each answer so it is found and marked.

In attempted long answers (4 marks or more), 10% earned full marks and 55% earned part of them; 58% of the marking points in them were missed or wrong.

What examiners look for: Partial marks are the norm in long answers. The marking scheme lists the steps; the missed ones are usually the final unit, the conclusion, a labelled diagram or a justification.