The SEE Commerce Papers: Pattern, Grid and Strategy

Two elective papers make up the commerce/management side of the SEE: Accountancy (कार्यालय सञ्चालन तथा लेखा) and Economics (अर्थशास्त्र). Both are scored out of 100, of which 75 marks are the written paper and 25 marks the internal or practical assessment. Both use exactly the same written pattern, and both reward the same thing: a student who knows the definitions, can fill in a table correctly, and can write an answer in the shape the examiner expects. This chapter sets out the pattern, the mark distribution taken from the CDC specification grids, and the order in which to attempt the paper.

1.1 The written paper: full marks, time and pattern

Group A — Very short answer, 11 × 1 = 11 marks. Eleven questions, all compulsory, one mark each, drawn from every unit of the syllabus. The answer is a definition, a name, a code, a formula, a single figure, or a one-line journal voucher. Time to allow: about 15 minutes.

Group B — Short answer, 8 × 5 = 40 marks. Eight questions, all compulsory, five marks each. In Accountancy these are usually explanations, comparisons, format descriptions and short numericals; in Economics they are explanations of a theory or a phenomenon, and small numericals. Time to allow: about 90 minutes — the largest single block of marks in the paper.

Group C — Long answer, 3 × 8 = 24 marks. Three questions, eight marks each, with an alternative offered for one of them. In Accountancy one of the three is a full numerical — a final-accounts problem, a bank cash book or a statement of expenditure — and a theoretical question is offered as its alternative. In Economics, Group C carries a long theoretical question, usually with a numerical part. Time to allow: about 60 minutes.

The last 15 minutes are for checking. Go back to Group A and make sure every one-line answer is in the exact terms the syllabus uses.

1.2 The unit-wise mark distribution

The CDC specification grids also fix how many questions are set from each unit and how many marks those questions carry. The teaching hours below are the reliable measure of a unit's weight, and the pattern of the paper is fixed: 11 questions of 1 mark, 8 of 5 marks and 3 of 8 marks.

Accountancy (कार्यालय सञ्चालन र लेखा), कक्षा १० — 96 teaching hours, 75 marks

Economics (अर्थशास्त्र), कक्षा १० — 96 teaching hours, 75 marks

Read the two tables as instructions. In Accountancy, units 5, 6, 7, 10 and 12 carry 40 of the 96 teaching hours and are almost entirely numerical. In Economics, units 2 and 6 carry 49 of the 96 hours and 39 of the 75 marks, and unit 6 is pure arithmetic. A student who masters the calculations and the standard lists will pass both papers comfortably; a student who only reads the theory will not.

1.3 How to attempt the paper

1. Read the whole paper first, for three minutes. Mark the questions you can answer at once and the ones you must think about. Choose your optional question in Group C at this stage, not at the last minute.
2. Attempt Group A first, in order. Eleven one-mark answers are 11 marks in fifteen minutes. Write one line each; do not write a paragraph for a one-mark question.
3. Group B next — it carries 40 marks. Spend about eleven minutes on each of the eight questions. A five-mark answer is five or six sentences, or a table of five or six rows, or a definition with four points. Not more.
4. Group C last, with a fresh mind for the numerical. Choose the numerical if you have practised it; choose the theoretical alternative only if you have not.
5. Take the questions in the paper's own order within each group if you are unsure, and number every answer exactly as the question is numbered.
6. In every numerical answer: write the formula, make the table, show the working line by line, keep the columns straight, and write the unit (Rs., units, marks, per cent) after every figure. In Accountancy, write the narration in brackets after every journal voucher — it carries a mark.
7. Never leave a question blank. In a one-mark question, a correct term without explanation earns the mark. In a five-mark question, four correct points out of five earn four marks.

1.4 A revision plan that fits the grid

1. Ten days before: finish the textbook chapter by chapter, using the worked examples in this book's companion volumes (NEBians Accountancy Grade 10 and NEBians Economics Grade 10) for the calculations.
2. Seven days before: do the unit-wise Group A bank (chapters 2 and 6 of this book) once, and mark every question you got wrong onto a single sheet of paper. That sheet is your revision syllabus for the last week.
3. Five days before: do the Group B banks (chapters 3 and 6), writing the answers out in full rather than reading them.
4. Three days before: do the numerical banks (chapters 4 and 7) against the clock, then check the arithmetic. In Accountancy do at least three final accounts, three bank reconciliation statements, three rectification sets and two bank cash books.
5. One day before: read the two model sets (chapters 5 and 7), answer Group A and Group B of each in writing, and read the Group C answers rather than writing them out.
6. On the morning of the paper: read only your own one-sheet list of mistakes, and the pattern table above.