CBSE 10th Maths Paper 2026 Draws Mixed Reactions; Paper tougher than previous year; Students review

CollegeDekho News Desk, New Delhi:The Mathematics exam of CBSE Class 10 concluded in February. As per the feedback received by CollegeDekho from students, the paper was tougher than the previous year, with many students rating it as 'lengthy and time-consuming'. Out of 120 responses received through a Google form available onCBSE Class 10 Maths Answer Key 2026(unofficial) link, 60% students rated the paper as tough. This clearly indicates that students faced difficulty in solving the questions within 3 hour duration.

Sarthak, a CBSE 10th student from Bhavnagar, said that 'The paper was tough as compared to all previous years, especially section E and D'. Another student, Annie from Noida, expressed that'The paper was both tough and lengthy. Competency-based questions are good, but making questions that are heavily oriented towards applications lengthy is confusing. Even the three and two-mark questions filled up 2-3 pages. The paper wasn't necessarily difficult, but it was very lengthy. If I had the time to recheck answers, I would be more confident. Almost none of the questions looked familiar', she concluded. Both these students felt the paper as tough.

Contrary to the above two students, another student, Aditi from Maharashtra, said,'I think the exam pattern and difficulty level were as usual. There is no fault of cbse the thing is we have a habit of rote learning or of direct questions and selected word problems because of our school, now we are appearing an actual exam that is done on fair basis so we are saying that it was difficult it is partiality and all but if someone has prepared from the start he or she owned the question paper could have done better. So we should learn from our mistakes'. According to Aditi, those who prepared well might score well, but the lack of preparation made the paper look tough.

Manas from Telangana gave a different opinion on the difficulty level.He said, "Theexam was very difficult and the time was not sufficient for most of the students, and the questions required extensive critical thinking skills". According to Manas, the paper required critical thinking skills, and this will lead to heavy time consumption in answering the questions.

Aarohi from Almora expressed that the paper was not so tough, but the actual tough questions were the 5-mark ones. She faced difficulty in answering these questions.

Based on the above reviews, it can be concluded that the CBSE 10th Maths paper 2026 is slightly harder than the previous years' question papers but students with extensive revision might have not felt it as tough.

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