CBSE 2024 Exams: Competency-based questions and more. Here's what's new

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has introduced several changes in its assessment practice for the upcoming academic season 2023–24 for classes 9–12.

"The National Education Policy, 2020 has affirmed the need to move from rote learning to learning more focused on developing the creative and critical thinking capacities of students to meet the challenges of the 21st century proactively. Accordingly, the Board has taken multiple steps towards implementation of Competency Focused Education in schools, ranging from aligning assessment to competencies, development of exemplar resources for teachers and students as well as continuous capacity building of teachers etc," the board had earlier said in a notification.

Accordingly, the board has introduced several changes in its assessment practice to test the students understanding, critical thinking, and application skills.


In the CBSE Evaluation Criteria 2023-24, there will be a significant emphasis on competency-based questions. For class IX and X, there will be at least 50 per cent Competency Focused Questions in the form of MCQs/Case Based Questions, Source-based Integrated Questions or any other type; 20 per cent will be select response type; and 30 per cent will be Constructed response questions (Short Answer/Long Answer type Questions, as per existing pattern).

For Class XI and XII, there will be 40 per cent competency-based questions, 20 per cent Select response type questions, and 40 per Constructed response questions.

Earlier, CBSE used to launch the sample papers in July. But, now the board has launched these sample papers before the session to give a students more clarity and time to prepare for the board exams. The sample paper has all the types of questions that can be asked in the upcoming board exams and it will give students an idea about the paper pattern and type of questions asked from each concept.
These will also help them understand the weightage of a particular topic that can come in upcoming board exams.

CBSE has also revealed the CBSE Class 10 & 12 Syllabus 2023-24 which you can download from their official website.