Madhyamik

Madhyamik Pariksha or simply Madhyamik (Bengali: মাধ্যমিক) is a centralised examination conducted by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (পশ্চিমবঙ্গ মধ্যশিক্ষা পর্ষদ) in West Bengal, India, at the end of the 10th standard of high school. By count of examinees, it is among the better known 10th standard examinations in India. Over 600,000 students took the exam in 2000, and the number has increased substantially since then. The number of students reached a record 1 million in the 2011 Madhyamik examination. Compulsory subjects are first language, second language, physical science (combined with physics and chemistry), life science, mathematics, history and geography.

From 1857 to 1964, the secondary examination was conducted by the University of Calcutta, under the name of matriculation examination. The Board of Secondary Education was established in 1951 under an Act of the State Legislature called the West Bengal Secondary Education Act of 1950. The board was subsequently renamed as West Bengal Board of Secondary Education in 1964, under the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education Act 1963. Since then, the examination has been renamed as the Madhyamik Pariksha (literally secondary examination in Bengali; the word madhyamik translates from the Bengali language as middle level).

Earlier, the first language had two papers of 90 points each, all others having one paper each of 90 points except Second Language and Mathematics, which had one paper each of 100 points.

As of 2011, the marks division has been 90 points each for all the compulsory subjects. In addition, corresponding to each paper worth 90 (rather than the full 100) points, the school is allocated 10 points for internal evaluation. One exception is when the examinee does not take the exam from any school, in which case there are 10 extra points in the written papers. As, decision of the board pass marks is 25%. And a student must pass in every subjects.

There is also an optional additional subject that can be chosen from those offered by the school among a huge selection allowed by the Board. The most common choice is work education and physical education. Other popular choices include mechanics and mathematics (the almost universal choice of high-scoring students) and book keeping (common among middle range students). If a student wishes to take a subject as additional, it may be physics, chemistry, computer science, and others. Though the subject is optional, very few students choose it. If the points obtained in the additional subject are more than 34, 34 points are deducted and the rest are added to the grand total. For points equal or lesser than 34, no points are added to the grand total. Despite the presence of this subject, percentage totals are calculated in 800 and not 900 points, thus offering the chance to score more than 100%. As of late this method has been discontinued and students may take up an additional subject solely to gain knowledge. No points will be taken into account from this subject, a decision which has caused most to drop this subject. Recently additional subject does not offer to make change the results.

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