CBSE Releases New Guidelines for Class 10 Students, Significantly Changes Answer Sheet Writing

The CBSE has made a significant change to the way questions and answers are written for Science and Social Science for the Class 10 Board Exam 2026, making it mandatory to divide the answer sheet into separate sections.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has issued very important guidelines for the Class 10 Board Exam 2026. These guidelines will be mandatory for all students appearing for the board exam next year. This year, the board has completely changed the question paper and answer sheet writing for both Science and Social Science subjects. The new guidelines are also available on the CBSE's official website, cbse.gov.in.

Starting this year, the CBSE has divided the Class 10 Science and Social Science question papers into separate sections to ensure students' answers are written in an organized manner and to avoid confusion during copy checking. Previously, students used to write answers to these subjects in the same order, which often led to confusing answers. Now, the Board has implemented strict and clear rules to eliminate this problem.

Question Paper in Three Parts

According to CBSE, the Science paper will be divided into three parts. Section A will first contain Biology questions, followed by Chemistry in Section B, and finally, Physics in Section C. Students will also be required to write their answers in the same order, creating three separate sections in the answer sheet. If a student mistakenly writes a Physics answer in the Biology section, they will not receive any marks for that question.

Similarly, the Social Science paper has been divided into four sections. Section A will be for History questions, Section B for Geography, Section C for Political Science, and Section D for Economics. Students will also be required to create four clear sections in the answer sheet and write answers only in the section that corresponds to the subject.

CBSE issued these instructions

CBSE has issued three key instructions to students. The first is that three sections must be created in the science answer sheet and four in the social science answer sheet. The second is that answers to any section cannot be written in any other section. The third and most stringent instruction is that if a student does so, that answer will not be evaluated. The board has also made it clear that such a mistake cannot be corrected even during re-checking or re-evaluation. This means that there is a high possibility of losing marks after the mistake.