Bengaluru, DHNS: Students who wrote the II PU English paper on Saturday claimed the paper had a few errors. Apart from a few spelling mistakes, there were a few ambiguous questions, according to students.

For example, in the four-mark questions in Part II, a spelling error was noticed in question number 17. In the question, the word ‘Basavaiah’, has been spelt as ‘Basavaih’.

A student said: “The name of a character is very important. We would have used it around five to six times while answering the questions. The board is very particular about spellings.”

Another spelling error was noticed in Part VI, question number 31 that carries four marks. Here, a passage is given and students are required to make notes and fill boxes. A sentence in the passage reads: “Parchment was made from the skin of goats and ships.” Here, sheep has been wrongly spelled as ‘ships’.

“Although this is an obvious error, a few students might have written ‘ship’ in a hurry,” said the student.

In question number 34, students have been asked what the underlined words in a passage refer to.

The passage reads: “Trees are essential to the ecosystem in which they reside. They absorb store rainwater water. This helps the ground water supply recharge. Fallen leaves make excellent compost that enriches soil.”

‘Gramatically incorrect’

“The passage itself does not read very well and does not even sound grammatically right. While I managed to write the reference for the first three words, I did not know what ‘that’ refereed to,” said another student.

Official’s version

"I have not seen the errors as of now and I cannot comment on what they might be. I can only comment once the question paper has been reviewed by experts. While students can point out mistakes, they are not in a position to judge what is right and wrong. Opinions can go wrong. At present, I can say that it is error free however, we can be sure only if it is verified," said K?N?Ranganath, joint director (examination),?Department of Pre-University Education (DPUE).

Rumours on English paper leak

There were some rumors with regards to the leak of the English paper on Saturday as a few set of images of handwritten questions were being circulated on the Whatsapp.

Officials of the Department of Pre-University Education (DPUE) however dismissed the rumors as baseless after they were examined. It was found that there was no similarity between the circulated question papers and the original one according to officials.

Photo credit: DHNS