How to prepare for the CBSE Class 10 maths board exam

Know what the paper tests

The board paper is set on the syllabus CBSE publishes for the year, which follows the NCERT textbook. The theory paper is worth 80 marks and lasts three hours; the other 20 marks come from internal assessment at school, through tests, a portfolio and maths lab work.

Students sit either Mathematics Standard or Mathematics Basic. Both cover the same chapters, but the Basic paper asks less demanding questions. The rules on which Class 11 maths course a Basic student may take have changed several times in recent years, so check the latest CBSE circular and ask your school before your child chooses.

Finish every NCERT exercise first

Board questions closely follow the methods in the NCERT book, so the textbook comes before any reference book. For each chapter, your child should be able to do every worked example and every exercise question without looking at the solution.

• Read the worked examples and redo them on paper with the book closed.
• Do the exercises in order; the later questions in each exercise are usually the harder ones.
• Mark any question that needed help, and come back to it a week later.

Use the official sample paper and marking scheme

Every year CBSE publishes a sample question paper and its marking scheme for each subject on its academic website, cbseacademic.nic.in. The sample paper shows the sections, the question types (multiple choice, assertion-reason, short and long answers, and case-based questions) and how marks are split between them.

The marking scheme is just as useful. It shows the step marks examiners give, which is why a correct method with a small slip can still earn most of the marks, and why an answer with no working can earn very few.

Practise chapter by chapter, then mix

Once a chapter is done in NCERT, add previous-year board questions on that chapter. Keep an error log: a notebook page per chapter listing each mistake and the correct method. Reviewing the log is faster and more useful than redoing whole exercises.

After the syllabus is finished, switch to mixed practice, where questions from different chapters come in random order. Mixed practice is closer to the real paper, because the question does not tell your child which chapter it comes from.

Sit timed papers in the last six weeks

Full papers under exam conditions build the pacing the three-hour paper needs. Aim for one or two a week at first and more in the final fortnight, then spend as long reviewing each paper as sitting it.

• Use the reading time to choose an order: confident questions first, long ones once the easy marks are secure.
• Note the time at the end of each section, so you can see where minutes go.
• After each paper, add every lost mark to the error log.

Small habits that save marks

Many lost marks have nothing to do with understanding the topic. Writing the formula before substituting into it, drawing and labelling the figure in geometry and trigonometry questions, giving units such as cm² and cm³, and using the value of π the question asks for are all quick to fix with practice.

Where 1-to-1 help fits

If one or two chapters keep going wrong, a tutor who works only with your child can find the exact step that breaks and fix it. Our CBSE Class 10 maths tuition page sets out what the classes cover. If the trouble goes back to Class 9 topics such as polynomials or triangles, see CBSE Class 9 maths.