Madhyamik Pariksha or simply Madhyamik is a centralised examination conducted by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education in West Bengal, India, at the end of the 10th standard of high school. Similarly one examination is also conducted at the state of Tripura for its students studying in Govt or Govt Aided school under the control of Tripura Board of Secondary Education. By count of examinees, it is among the better known 10th standard examinations in India. In WBSE, 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, 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.
Exam structure
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 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 subject. 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 and book keeping. 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. Efforts are on to calibrate the syllabus with the much easier and higher-scoring national curriculum offered by the central boards, namely the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations and the Central Board of Secondary Education. There have been suggestions that the Madhyamik should be taken on the syllabus of class 10 only as introduced in the higher secondary. The students of the current year are giving it like before, on the syllabi of both Classes 9 and 10. However, from 2012, it is going to be taken only on the syllabus of Class 10. For Madhyamik 2007, the whole syllabus for all the subjects has been changed to lessen the load on the students. There has both been some additions and some trimming done to all the subjects. While the majority of students passing Madhyamik usually go on to appear for the Higher Secondary Examination conducted by the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, students may also opt for the All India Senior School Certificate Examination, conducted by the CBSE, or the Indian School Certificate examination conducted by the CISCE.
