KARACHI, Aug 31: Only two candidates could secure “A-1” grade marks in the Class XII General Science (Computer) group annual examination-2008 and were accordingly declared first and second position-holders at a ceremony organized by the Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi (BIEK) here on Sunday to announced the results.

A total of 1,826 candidates (895 male and 931 female) appeared in the examination and only 560 of them (232 male and 328 female) passed it. The overall pass percentage stood at 30.67 as against the previous year’s 34.2.

According to the statistics, 38 candidates (five male and 33 female) got “A” grade, 155 (26 male and 129 female) “B” grade and 245 (107 male and 138 female) got “C” grade. The remaining successful candidates got “D” and “E” grades.

Huma Amin Chhotani (Roll No. 611555), daughter of Mohammad Amin Chhotani, bagged the first position with 930 (84.55 per cent) out of the total 1,100 marks while Mohammad Amin Mohiuddin (Roll No 610186), son of Gul Ahmed clinched the second position with 899 (81.73 per cent) marks. They are students of D. A. Degree College for Women and DHA Degree College for Men, respectively. Sara Ansari (Roll No. 611401), daughter of Mohammad Hashim Ansari and Urooj Amanullah (Roll No. 611573), daughter of Amanullah Ismail Baddi, shared the third position with 855 (77.73 per cent) marks. Ms Sara is a student of the BAMM PECHS Govt College for Women and Ms Urooj is a student of the D. A. Degree College for Women.

BIEK chairman Prof Anwar Ahmed Zai, controller of examinations Prof Agha Akber Mirza, second and third position-holders and their principals and parents attended the ceremony. However, the first position-holder could not be contacted by the BIEK to inform her about the programme.

Talking to newsmen, Amin Mohiuddin, Sara Ansari and Urooj Amanullah complained of loss of their studies and sleep owing to the power failures and load-shedding during their examinations.

“Our performance was affected by the disruption in power supply not only at our homes but also at the examination centres,” they added.

Amin Mohiuddin was of the view that the trend of using unfair means in the examinations could be curbed with the introduction of multiple choice questions in the papers. He stated that he did not take any tuition, and wished to become a chartered accountant.

Sara Ansari said although she was happy to get the position, she was disappointed by missing the “A-1” grade. “It is merely because of the frequent power outages which had seriously affected my studies at home and performance at the examination centre,” she complained.

She said that most students sought tuitions at coaching centres only because their teachers would not give them proper attention, one of the reasons being crowded classes.

She pointed out that a normal strength of students in a class was though to be between 30 and 40 but in most institutions, a class consisted of more than 65 students.

Urooj Amanullah said she did not take any tuition because she was lucky to have good teachers at her institution.

She stressed the need for introducing more objective-type questions in the papers to curb the cheating culture.