Two shots at Class 10 boards. Here's how it actually works.

The short version

From 2026, Class 10 boards happen twice a year.

• February is compulsory. Everyone sits it. No opting out.
• May is optional. It’s a retry for up to three subjects, if you want to pull a score up.
• Best score counts, per subject. Not your latest attempt. Your better one.

The catches, because there are always catches

You need 75% attendance to even sit the boards. That’s a hard eligibility rule now, not a polite request the school waives in March. Every skipped class counts.

Internal assessment happens once, before the February exam, and there’s no second go at it. Whatever you scored on projects and practicals is the number you carry into both board attempts, February and May alike.

The improvement exam is capped at three subjects, drawn from Science, Mathematics, Social Science and the languages DD News . You can’t re-sit the whole year and hope.

The paper itself is changing

About half the questions are now competency-based: MCQs and application questions that check whether you can use an idea, not just recite it. Another 30% or so is long-answer. Results land in April for the February exam and June for the May one.

You’ve probably heard your answer sheets get “checked by AI” now. They don’t. CBSE scans the sheets and marks them on screen, a system it calls On-Screen Marking, but the board has flatly denied that AI grades anything: “AI is not being used to check Class 10 or Class 12 answer sheets. The evaluation process continues to be conducted by experienced and trained teachers.”

The software adds up your marks and flags any blank it finds. A human still reads what you actually wrote.

What this really means

The mugging-up era is dying, slowly. A paper that rewards application, plus a second shot in May, quietly tilts the whole thing toward the person who understands the concept and away from the one who memorised the textbook and froze.

Class 12 might get this system next. Right now you’re the pilot batch.