The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) conducted Class 12 English paper today, March 12. As per students, the Class 12 English paper was "well-structured and balanced". According to Gargi Parashar, PGT – English, Silverline Prestige School, Ghaziabad, "The Class 12 English question paper reflected a well-balanced design and was closely aligned with the CBSE curriculum and assessment objectives. It effectively evaluated students’ reading comprehension, analytical thinking, and language proficiency. The reading passages were engaging and appropriately challenging, while the writing section encouraged clarity of thought and structured expression.
The literature section highlighted the key themes of the prescribed texts and promoted critical thinking and interpretation. Overall, the paper maintained a balanced level of difficulty and was suitable for students of varied ability levels, ensuring a fair and comprehensive assessment of learning outcomes."
CBSE 12th English paper analysis 2026: Students and teachers' reactions
Alka Kapur, Modern Public School, Shalimar Bagh - "The English examination conducted today was a well-balanced paper that effectively assessed students’ understanding of the subject. The MCQs were truly competency-based, testing students’ comprehension and application skills rather than simple recall. Most of the questions were analytical in nature, encouraging students to think critically and interpret the content carefully. Overall, the paper maintained a good balance between knowledge, understanding, and analytical ability."
Priyanka Yadav, PGT English, KIIT World School, Gurugram - "All three sections were set at an average level of difficulty, offering a well-balanced mix of textual and competency-based questions.
Section A tested students’ reading and comprehension skills through unseen passages, which were easy to attempt. The questions encouraged students to think critically and reflect on the underlying themes and messages in the texts.
Section B included four creative writing tasks: notice writing, invitation/reply writing, letter writing, and report/article writing. The questions were clear, and sufficient hints were provided to guide the students.
Section C was largely inference-based. The Reference to Context (RTC) questions in the Literature section followed the format outlined in the CBSE Sample Paper. The long-answer questions interlinked narratives from different chapters and poems, encouraging deeper textual understanding.
Overall, the paper did not include many direct questions; instead, it focused more on inference- and application-based understanding. The question paper comprised a well-rounded blend of knowledge, analysis, and application-oriented questions. According to the students, the paper was a little lengthy."
Khushboo Arya - PGT, English at JAIN International Residential School (JIRS), Bengaluru - "Section A was easy and as per the sample papers available on the CBSE website.
Section B - Writing questions were also easy and as per the sample paper. However, a minute detail in Q:5B(Job Application) can confuse the average slow learners, as they are used to seeing National Daily in questions and give a name to the paper but in the question paper, the name itself was given as ‘The National Times’ instead of national daily. The report-writing question required students to be mindful, as the event is not a one-day but a week-long event, but the Questions were very easy.
Section C- Reference to context questions was very easy for students who have practiced sample papers. Overall, the literature questions were mostly aligned with the NCERT textbooks.
5 marker literature questions were competency-based but not very difficult for a student who has thoroughly practiced.
Set 2 : Section A: easy and as per the sample paper. (same as, SET 1)
Section B : writing questions were easy to attempt.
Section C : Extracts were same as set -1.
However, in Set -2, a few 2-markers (Q10) needed a little more intricate knowledge of chapters when compared to Set 1.
5 markers were very easy.
Set 3 : Section A and Section C extracts same as set 1.
Literature was also more or less the same. Overall, the Question paper was easy for any student who has practiced sample question papers. In fact, in the 'Invitation and Replies’ topic, it was very easy to identify which one to write- a card / letter. Thorough students should be able to get 90 per cent above and average students can also easily score above 75 per cent."
Praneet Mungali, a dedicated educationist and Trustee at the Sanskriti Group of Schools - "Analytical questions in the unseen comprehension, interesting analogy based questions. Creative writing was quite topical. Students would relate to it. It could have been made more challenging.
It could be managed well within time. Some students have also attempted extra. Reference to context questions from literature textual in nature. The type was inference - based. It was quite detail- oriented. Questions were framed from the minute details. The meaning had to derived from in between the lines. The 2 markers if literature were direct questions. The long 5 markers were from across the texts. They were challenging enough."
