I am a student of HSSC-I (Session 2010) and I was one of the many students who gave the rather unbalanced paper of Chemistry on the 30th of April, 2010. Most, if not all, students were strongly against the paper stating how the paper was “totally L” or “totally P” (for male and female gender respectively) due to the following reasons:

• Too many numericals in Section B (which were very time-consuming)
• Too many questions from Chapter 8: Chemical Equilibrium (5 short questions totaling 20 marks in Sec B, 1 long question totaling 13 in Sec C)
• Questions were said to be "dodgy" (which they honestly were!)

Read on ahead.

To make it an interesting post, I asked friends and classmates from around Pakistan to tell artsyHANDS about their thoughts on the Chemistry exam.

Their Opinion

"It was lengthier than expected. Due to a bundle of numericals, a number of students failed to complete the paper in given time. Time management was quite difficult. Federal Board has made us guinea pigs for trying out a new paper-pattern as it wants to transform itself to O/A Levels like conceptual paper pattern (as they did in Class 9 with our Physics paper) – Mamoon Ahmed

It was unbalanced… and hence, not for an average student!" – Khurram Ali Akbar

"As for my take on Chemistry, it’s the same as every other paper. You study well, it goes good. In my opinion Federal Board did not screw us over, their only mistake was taking too much from those chapters that most people left "for choice". Kids did not study and its easier to blame another rather than admit to your own lack of hard work" – Mehwish Zuberi”

"The Chemistry paper was like being sniper shot (no scope) by a noob who’s camping 500m far from you through a window…" – Umer Hamid

(By far, our favorite ^^)

"We can do nothing about the Chemistry paper. It is the choice of the teacher, he may give more questions from a given chapter. If the paper had come out of syllabus, then surely we would’ve protested. But the paper WAS from the book. So just shut up and pray for good marks. OK? – Nabeel Razzaq

“What’s a dis Chemistry?” – Asif Ali Zardari

While I was giving the Chemistry paper, I felt like I was sitting on a chair of nails… drinking lava… with someone hammering my head… I kept hearing the screams of "YOU ARE SCREWED! YOU ARE SCREWED!!!!" – Usman Riaz

"It sure was one of the most off the hook paper i have ever seen. If they expect us to attempt such papers then they probably should think about extending the academic session for 2 years instead of one, so that we may at least have some freakish idea about what’s written in that Godforsaken book" – Fakhir Munir

“Umer Mukhtar lost his virginity on the 30th of April" – Umer Mukhtar

I think that this paper was made for teachers… not for students. It was also rather awesome to see that the whole paper was from Chapter 8. Now the people who set up this paper need to resign because they simply don’t have the ability to provide quality papers. They think that students have the brain of a super-computer instead of having actual human brains. No tension! – Aneel Azam

“In my personal opinion: nothing was out of course. The questions were just not the way we expected them to be. So giving the paper again is not what I favor. Agar extra marks mil jate hein tau I’d be fine ” – Kumkum*

“The exam should be taken again only if:

1. Questions were out of the course.
2. The paper was leaked out

The Objective was no doubt tough. The paper was lengthy. Questions were tough too, as in: not a single question could be called EASY. Except for the Spontaneous reactions :S” – Paaro* (from Devdas)

"The paper created issues for those who weren’t given the quality of education that the paper demanded. Too lengthy. Chapter 8 say bauhat ziada aaya tha which created time-management hurdles for the students… including yours truly" – Mujtaba Raja

A Teacher’s Opinion

I have only one quote to quote here, and that is of my Chemistry teacher Sir Navaiz:

“Yaar, Paper zara twisted sa tha. Warna asaan tha. Bus uss nay zara jo hai naa woh questions zara different angle say diyay thay. Warna mushkil koi nahee tha!” – Sir Navaiz

My Opinion

Ahhh. So it’s finally time for me to opinionate (i.e. to make an opinion .

Truth be told, I have mixed feelings about the paper. It wasn’t a downright horrible paper. But it had its issues: of balancing mainly. I personally did not have any issues with time. I was done with the paper at 11:30PM (half-an-hour before they take it away).

No matter how twisted the questions might have been, if a student had studied properly, there really wouldn’t have been any issues.

The questions weren’t out-of-syllabus (as Nabeel pointed out) and so we simply cannot ask the Board to retake the paper (tauba! Why would anyone want to open that munhooos book again anyway?).

However, I’m open to grace marks.

*Names changed to protect privacy