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The end of semester exams, are reportedly now to commence from 10th December owing to the high rising pollution in Delhi.

On the 21st of November, the Examinations Department of Delhi University (DU) declared that the end-semester examinations for undergraduate students would be now postponed owing  to the high rising levels of pollution observed in the city of Delhi. The order was signed by the Dean of Examinations, Professor Viney Gupta, quoting, “With the pollution level in Delhi rising to such hazardous levels, the department believes it is highly unsafe for the students to step out of their houses and expose themselves to such toxic atmosphere.”

The Department holds that the examinations will now commence from 10th December onwards, by when the pollution level is expected to lower down. A new date sheet will be prepared by the 24th November, and uploaded on the site, www.du.ac.in. However, the gaps provided between the examinations will be lessened so as to not waste students’ precious time. 

This decision was an outcome of lengthy debates held in the Examinations Department following the protests taking place across the University campus for the past few weeks. Protestors had argued, “Numerous students have already fallen prey to the pollution in Delhi. This would severely affect their performance in the examinations, hereby bringing down the average grade of the University itself.”

This is a dire and drastic decision which is not supported by all. It was argued that the postponement of the examinations could lead to a delay in the declaration of the results as well as the commencement of the following semester, thereby making it even more difficult for professors to finish the syllabus on time. “The Department fails to realise the adverse consequences this delay in examinations may bring forth. However, I do hope that they have planned the following semester accordingly and know how to deal with the repercussions,” said Ms Shilpa Khureshi, a professor in the Delhi University.

Dean Viney Gupta argues, “The Department is taking utmost care and looking deeply into the issue. The planning will be done such that not many changes would have to be made to the schedule of the following semester. The students’ health needs to be prioritised over exam schedules.”

Disclaimer: Bazinga is our weekly column of almost believable fake news. It is only to be appreciated and not accepted.

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat Archives

Aditi Gutgutia

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In yet another shock to the final year students, who are still recovering from the fact that Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is holding its entrance exam in December this year, the University of Delhi (DU) has decided to prepone its semester exams, which were to be held in December to mid-November. This shuffling of dates comes in the wake of the JNU entrance scheduled to happen in December. Some sources in the examination department claim that this change occurred because DU doesn’t want its students to suffer, and wants them to prepare for the entrance without any stress. The revised date sheet has been uploaded on the website.

An official source confirmed that the decision for the change of dates was taken in the academic council meeting which took place on 21st September. One of the council members proposed the change on the grounds that many colleges have received requests for the same by students. This proposal was later supported by the majority of the council members and passed subsequently. Since JNU is one of the most prestigious universities, all major universities desire to send the highest number of students to it. “This is not just a matter of pride, but also confirms that the academic merit of your institution is at par with the best of this country”, said Prof. M.K Khanewala, who is the dean of academics in another major University, situated in the temple town of Varanasi.

Meanwhile, the decision has received a mixed response from the student community. While some are rejoicing on account of the fact that they can finish their exams early and study for JNU’s entrance in peace, others are not happy as now they have to study for the semester exams along with the preparations. Prachi Dedha, a final year student who was not happy with the decision, says, “Now, this change of date will make our teachers give us more assignments and will kill all the time we have got to prepare for the entrance.”

Even some of the other departments of the University, which play a major role in organising the semester exams, like the Finance Department and the Transport Department, are surprised because of this sudden change of dates. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one of the officials of the Finance Department said, “This decision has put all of us on our toes. The pace of our work was in accordance with the previous December date sheet. Now, all of us have to work day and night for the exams to take place in November.”

Although the surprising decision has received mixed responses, the real consequence of taking such a step can only be gauged after the results of the semester exams and the JNU entrance are declared.

 

Picture Credits: JNU website

Srivedant Kar

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A new semester is either a dreadful or a pleasant opportunity for the Delhi University students. Irony hangs heavy when the experience of going through ‘Board Exams’ every six months has students on the extreme ends of the stress spectrum. Either they are stressed and anxious right from the beginning or are ‘casual’ about the supposedly serious things. For both kinds of people, here are three things to keep in mind for a new semester

1. Setting a target

Right from the beginning, set your goals for a new semester or just set the goal of not setting any after all. Changing things midway won’t land you either way. If you decide to achieve something by the end of the semester, then strive for it. If you decide to drop goals in the middle then there was no point in the beginning to start and pursue them. Realising what can be a realistic goal is important and no exterior force can bring this realisation.

2. Balancing social and academic lives

This realm haunts most of the DU students. The act of balancing here requires being or getting smart enough to be aware of what’s to be done when. Although a person can balance both of them efficiently, the supposed efficiency proves to be detrimental for both the areas. It needs to be understood that in a time frame, only one area needs to be focused on. Focusing on both the areas at the same time would involve a lot of juggling.

3. Figuring out the way to score

After results of a semester are declared, one understands the plus and the minus of the academic system. It is wise to discuss the extrapolation regarding the techniques to score with your college mates. Developing a concrete notion on scoring before starting a semester is always helpful.

 

 

Image credits: http://blogs.simmons.edu/

Disclaimer: Bazinga is DU Beat’s weekly column of almost believable fake news!

In this exam season, students are flipping with exam phobia. Students take to unhealthy living and unhealthy food. They run around while sleeping for 2-3 hours every day or not sleeping at all! Everyone feels the exam heat, and teachers are no exception. Their workload increases and the process of allotting marks and distributing copies can be a tedious one. So this year the Varsity has decided to give a post exam party of sorts where all the teachers, as well as the students can celebrate the end of the exam maha yuddh. The varsity this year had appointed additional squad members to keep an eye on invigilators and supervisors, alike. So with more than required number of teachers in every room no one time had time for breaks, courtesy of exam-malpractices. “Exam time brings with it increased workload for us as well, and this year it was even more so. A party like that would be welcome refreshment”, said a senior official sharing her views on this.

Even more unexpected was where this idea came from which was, if reports are to be believed, from VC Dinesh Singh. Apparently the VC knows when to throw a party. Calling it ‘Exam ke Baad‘ they are planning to have games and few local DJs to turn it up, adding to the fun. The cost for all this is surprisingly economical. The university has tie ups with numerous local ventures and for a contract they have agreed to sponsor the event allowing DU to go forward with negligible cost. Also with most students leaving home for the summer, less turn ups are expected from outstation students. The venue for this has yet to be decided, but it will happen in three or four campuses simultaneously, both South and North. No more details have been given.

Bazinga is DU Beat’s weekly column of almost-believable fake news!

Feature image source: globe-views.com

If you are in your second year, you’d probably know by now how to pass Delhi University semester examinations with a respectable percentage. For those of you who are thinking – ‘Duh! Study well, score well!’ – you’ll be disappointed to know that getting good marks in university exams is not that easy. Going through your books thoroughly will, no doubt help you avoid getting an ER (Essential Repeat) and even help you score 60% marks, but to take your aggregate to 80s or 90s, you will require more than just books. So here are few pointers which will hopefully help you increase your percentage a bit.

1)  Past year question papers

DU has a history of repeating a particular type of questions every year. It follows a trend and more often than not, it asks similar questions. So getting an idea by going through past year questions really helps. After all why to study those topics which have less chances of appearing in your question paper, right?

2)  Presentation

How you write your answers makes a lot of difference to the examiner. You might know everything but if you happen to present it clumsily, the teacher who is correcting it might not even consider reading it and give a 4 where you could have scored 8. So make sure you have a pen which makes your hand writing clear and easily readable. Try to put your answer in points rather than paragraphs and underline the key words. Use different colored pens if you really want to leave no stones unturned. Also drawing margins makes it look better.

3)  Read your question paper well before you start

There are always choices where you will be required to attempt one of the two or more questions. You don’t want to attempt a question which is not required. To be on the safe side, tick the questions you want to answer right at the beginning.

4)  Don’t leave a question unanswered

Even if you don’t know the answer, don’t leave the space blank. Attempt it for what it’s worth. Maybe the question is wrong or out of syllabus, if you attempt it you will get marks for that.

5)  Write generously but keep track of time

Divide your time among questions in such a way that you have time for revision. It sounds far-fetched but it works better than you can imagine.

Take my word for it, even if you didn’t study your portion properly following these would get you a better score than you deserve.

DU Beat wishes all readers good luck for their semester exams!

In what might be another notch on the its list of mishaps, Delhi University allegedly fumbled with results of the final year students of Journalism Honours. Apparently, the University forgot to add 200 marks to the final score.

According to the current syllabus being followed, the VI semester of the three year Journalism course has two papers -Seminar on current affairs’ and Human rights, Gender and Environment both conducted for the first time in 2013, along with the usual dissertation. The addition of these papers led the total marks to be earned in the VI semester to 400, in comparison to the 200 prior to that. The aggregate marks at the end of the degree now became 2400 but the results which were released on 12th July show the students to be marked only out of 2200, which created a situation of panic among some of the hopeful graduates.

At first, the students assumed that the dissertation marks had gone missing. While many distressed students were confused whether to consider themselves as graduates or not, Journalism students of Kamala Nehru College remained calm about the situation. “The best part is we already know are dissertation marks, so we can include them in ourselves” remarks a student, wanting to be unnamed. Students of other colleges did not share the same fate as their dissertation marks were not disclosed to them.

Later on, as Kamala Nehru students who already knew their dissertation score analysed the 2200 with the marks of their previous semesters, what came into notice was the fact that DU had included the marks of the dissertation but left out the scores of the other two papers.

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While, it is yet to be confirmed from any University official if an error has actually occurred, a faculty member of the course attested to the oversight on the University’s part stating that the University did forget to add the 200 marks and that a new result sheet would soon be uploaded.

The sudden bouts of high blood pressure amidst the students, led to several students using social media to share their worries and their anguish over the result.

Errors in examination results is surely nothing new for the students of Delhi University. Earlier this year, students had reported of over inflation of marks with students scoring 102 in a paper of 100.

For the first time in its history, the DU results were announced in record time of 15 days. But the impossible seems to have happened at the University of Delhi.

A student scored 102 marks in her French paper, which was, to her utter amazement, a paper having 100 marks as maximum. Soon, similar discrepancies surfaced in other colleges.

A second year BSc student is shown to have scored above maximum in both internal assessment as well as the written exam. He was given 65 out of 50 in Paper I and 74 out of 50 in Paper II. A student found he had scored 57 out of 55 in mathematics. Another has been given 58 marks out of 38 in physics. Marksheets are replete with such inconsistencies

Eleven students of Kalindi College have received two sets of their third semester exam results. In the second marksheets, six marks have been knocked off their total scores. As a result, a few failed. There are reports from other colleges of similar discrepancies in the results of the undergraduate semester exams conducted in November-December 2012.

“Much ink has been spilt on the woes of the Semesterization that was has been established in the University over the last two years. What we have seen is in fact a series of actions which have only compounded the mess,” quoted a second year student.

This faux pas is still not taken seriously by the varsity authorities. This matter was raised by one of the victims in VC’s “darbar” as she was denied admission in Law Faculty seeing the unrealistic marksheet, but no austere steps were taken in this regard.  The university’s examination system has lost its credibility pertaining to regular inconsistencies being witnessed every time semester results come out.
University authorities have repeatedly blamed the sheer  number of students, not only for such problems, but even for major reforms such as removal of provisions for special chance and re-evaluation.

University sources say such faults have become common since the introduction of the semester system, which practically doubles the work of the exam branch.
University authorities admit that given the large number of students involved, errors are possible. Mistakes can happen while dealing with the evaluation and declaration of 122 results for 1.30 lakh students. DU has opened a grievance redress window and is now rectifying the mistakes.

Evaluation of students is meant to test their understanding of the subject, their power of critical thinking and ability to assimilate the syllabus. This is to provide an honest benchmark for an outsider to gauge the student’s appropriateness for a job, for further academic work etc. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen when it is obvious to outsiders that the marks are not a reflection of the student’s abilities- either by themselves or in a comparative sense.

The Mayan prediction of the world ending on 21st December might not have come true, but the students of Delhi University were in for a small glimpse of what could have been, as the semester results were declared barely three weeks after the exams ended.

The results were a tad surprising and unpleasant for most. 2nd Year History honours saw a fall of 10 percent in their marks as compared to the last two semesters. The topper of Lady Shri Ram College scored a 75% that was a drop from last semester’s 81%, while the average was around 60%. A significant number of people failed in courses such as Economics (Hons) and B Com (Hons), while the general trend was poor scores in subjects where students were confident of scoring well. “A large number of people want to give their papers for re-evaluation, but the procedure is not yet clear to anybody as it had been removed for a while,” says Diksha Jhalani from LSR.

The Economics (Hons.) topper at Kamla Nehru College scored an 83, while St. Stephen’s saw an 85, which was similar to last semester’s scores. B Com honours at SRCC saw a drop of about 5-6%, with the highest being around 89% as compared to a couple of students scoring in the nineties last year. Other courses such as Psychology (Hons.) also saw a drop in percentage, with some students claiming that the only thing that helped them scrape through was good marks given by their college in the internals. English honours in Venky saw a fall of 6-7% in the overall percentage, while other colleges also saw a slight decrease in the English scores this semester. The result of the subject Economic History of India and interdisciplinary courses like Environmental Issues was not as good as expected, despite these subjects being highly scoring.

The results of the first semester were more or less the same as what it was last year, with many of the students scoring high percentages. However, there was also an increase in the number of students who didn’t do so well, leading to more students failing. First year students mostly responded to the results as unexpected, while the correction of qualifying papers like lower and higher Hindi was more lenient this time, with most students passing these exams. Overall, the results this semester consisted of more nightmares for the students, as the Delhi University Board can’t seem to make up its mind on maintaining consistency when it comes to giving marks in the recently introduced semester system.

Extra classes, incomplete syllabus and internal tests lined up is haunting every student of DU. With semester exams kicking off from 20th November and a gamut of auspicious festivals approaching, semester students are bearing the brunt.

Sometimes teachers teach so fast, that nothing could be understood. The pace is a problem but student don’t have a choice. It does put more pressure; the teachers are also hard pressed for time. A cut in the extra-curricular activities that any student might have joined seems the only way out.

“It’s very disheartening to be the victim of sheer sacrifice of the quality of our studies. It’s a case of only feeding and no absorption. In one of the subjects, Econometrics, the entire annual syllabus now has to be completed in span of 4 months, making it tough for the teachers as well” expressed   Poornima Kharbanda, II Year Economics Hons. Student.

University seems to be in a rush to get over with the exams of B.Com (H) and Eco (H), as there exams start from 20th November and end by 30th November much earlier than last year’s exams.

But the students that are the worst hit, it seems, are from the science stream. While the exams for other students start on November 20 and their classes go on till mid-November, the practical exams for science stream students start on November 1, giving sleepless nights to teachers and students alike.

Apart from regular classes, about five hours of extra classes per week are held giving no room to indulge in extracurricular activities.

“These days are very hectic. Pressure created by the unorganised structure of the semester system gives us n flexibility at all. The extra classes, coaching’s, busy date sheet plus the huge syllabus has screwed days’ fixtures and schedule completely” Rishav a second year student spoke his heart out.

 

Ensuing soon after the declaration of the Semester 1 results by Delhi University for their course, was the row over the preternaturally high scores that the students had managed to achieve this time around, raising question marks over the veracity of these scores and their value.

In a recent development, teachers from the Department of Economics and the Department of Germanic and Romance studies have filed protests in the office of the Controller of Examinations against these apparently bloated results. The results in the Economics (H) exam went up to as high as 99% and in the Germanic and Romance studies exams to 96.6% and 86.6% in the respective papers

“We strongly protest against this un-academic way of moderating results that has diluted academic standards and has made a mockery of the evaluation process undertaken seriously and sincerely by us,” the letter reads.

These reports have been confirmed by Saikat Ghosh, DUTA Executive Member who goes onto explain that the crux of the problem with these results lies that they have been moderated to such an extent that they have not been deemed correct and thus is in fact detrimental to the faith placed in the result evaluation procedure of DU.

He expounds that usually, the moderation as a process is a meticulous and intricate one, which involves the tabulation of marks in the primary step of the evaluation ladder which is followed up with identification of the ‘border- line’ cases. Once the red- ink separates these results from the hordes of the other scores, the marks that these particular exam- takers had secured in their Internal Assessments is taken into account and if the student is found worthy of a couple or more of grace marks, then they do get added on to his or her result. It is not a blanket formula, applied to all and sundry, something that the results this semester end seem to contradict. Also the principle for moderation has to be adopted by the Academic Council of the University of Delhi and only then is credence accorded to it.

As Mr. Ghosh informs us, the issue with the moderations this time has been that the tabulation had never been done and the teachers seem to have been told to moderate results freely by the Controller of Examinations, Dr. Jaggi, who in turn has passed the buck onto the Vice- Chancellor saying that the order had indeed come from higher quarters. “We have ample reason to believe that the results have been fudged” asserts Mr. Ghosh.

The DUTA has demanded an impartial probe into this matter and will adopt a resolution regarding the same in its General Body meeting on 31 January, 2012.