TN talent locked as NCERT gives wrong key

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

An error in the National Talent Search Examination conducted by National Council Of Educational Research and Training may shatter the dreams of many aspirants in the state who are aiming for the national level scholarship.

The national-level scholarship program in India to identify and recognize students with extremely high intellect and academic talent will affect the students from Tamil Nadu due to a typo in question number 48 of the Level II of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT).

The test being conducted for 4,000 students of Class VIII students across India, including 304 from the state, on May 13 had a different question for students in Tamil Nadu and students from rest of India. Interestingly, as per the scoring key (right answer) for the question paper, NCERT doesn’t recognize the query posed to Tamil Nadu students.

Parents said the question number 48 in SAT test pertains to a four multiple choice math query where the scoring key for Tamil Nadu center was one and for the rest of India is 3.

Interestingly, NCERT, which published the scoring keys for SAT 2012 on June 20, 2012, ignored the query posed to students of Tamil Nadu and recognized the answer to rest of India as the correct one.

Parents said the loss of one mark would affect the ranking of Tamil Nadu students when compared with their rest of India counterparts.

Parents said that they have addressed their concern to NCERT and the state government regarding the typo in the question paper.

“We will look into the matter. Have patience,” said NCERT. Interestingly, directorate of government examination who conducted the Level I exam has to initiate steps to rectify the issue. Parents urged the directorate to initiate necessary action so that students from the state are not discriminated.