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Journalism of Courage
—Reeya Soni
The Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for undergraduate programmes is scheduled to be conducted from May 21 to May 31. The registrations for the same began on February 9 and will conclude on March 12. The advance city intimation slip will be released on April 30.
Debanchita Kashyap’s dream college was Miranda House. She scored 99.2 per cent from Humanities stream in class 12 board exams. She got 100 percentile in CUET 2022 examination and is now pursuing BA (Hons) in Political Science from Miranda House, Delhi University. She shared with indianexpress.com her CUET exam journey.
Balancing board exams and CUET together
Board exams and CUET are two very different tests and managing them simultaneously at first was challenging. On one hand, I had to learn how to frame and structure my answer for board exams because they contain descriptive questions. On the other hand, I needed to learn every line by heart for the CUET, which was made up of multiple-choice questions (MCQ). It was a big transition for all aspirants.
As CBSE board exams were conducted in two terms — Term 1 focussed on MCQ type of questions while term 2 focused on descriptive questions. Therefore, the preparation for the Term 1 board exam helped CUET.
Preparing English for CUET
To prepare English for CUET, one should have a basic understanding of grammar such as prepositions, articles and must have the right skill set in comprehension. Comprehension is very important for board exams as well as CUET. The candidates also need to have a strong vocabulary.
Extremely exhausting at first
We hardly had 15 days to study because the term 2 board examinations concluded in June 2022 and the CUET started around July 15, 2022. We were quite frustrated by the problems like laptop issues, connectivity issues, and the postponement of’ board exams.
More combinations but less time
In CUET, I had ample number of combinations of subjects to choose from but the time given for preparation was so little that I had to stick to my class 12 subjects. Therefore, I was only focusing on the subjects that I already knew rather than experimenting with new subjects which in itself was very problematic.
CUET requires a few changes
There should be certain changes in the CUET format like more clarity should be given regarding the exam pattern, syllabus and the circulars must be released months prior to the exam, not a day or two. NTA must release more sample papers and they should try to make CUET more student-friendly. A lot of network issues and connectivity issues happened at our time which need to be resolved.
CUET also lacks in testing the writing, reading and speaking abilities of students. MCQs doesn’t require students to research and conduct surveys which in turn hampers their learning and creative capabilities. Therefore, there must be descriptive questions as well in the exam, especially for humanities.
Advice for the CUET candidates
My first advice to the candidates appearing this year for CUET is that for preparation, stick to your NCERT books, and for English, you need to work on your vocabulary and grammar a bit. A proper study schedule and a good routine will help you crack the examination.
CUET homogenised the marking pattern
After the introduction of CUET, the whole demography of the classes changed. We have more diversity in the class now. This format has homogenised the marks of different boards across the country.
