Competency-based questions, Class 10: case-based questions explained

A case-based question gives you a short real-life story, then asks three questions about it. In the CBSE Class 10 Maths paper, Section E has three of them, worth 4 marks each, split 1, 1 and 2. To solve one, pull the numbers out of the story and answer each part on its own.

What are CBSE competency-based questions?

Competency-based questions ask you to use what you have learned in a new situation. They test whether you can apply an idea, not whether you can repeat it.

CBSE's Secondary Curriculum for 2026-27 says that "approximately 50% of the questions are competency-focused". It names the kinds: "case-based, source-based, integrated, data interpretation, situational, and application-oriented". It says the remaining items include multiple-choice questions and short and long answers.

The same page adds that "this structure may be reviewed periodically". So check the curriculum for your exam year.

A competency question asks you to use a chapter, not recite it.

Is the 50 percent about questions or marks?

The curriculum says questions, not marks. It also does not say which questions on a paper they are. It lists the kinds, and then the kinds of the remaining items. Our reading of the 2025 Maths paper marks each question by the kind of thinking it asks for.

Question 31(A) of the Maths Standard sample paper shows the idea. It prints a student's working for a trigonometry sum, step by step. You must find the step with the error, fix it and finish the answer. Knowing the formula is not enough. You have to read someone else's working and judge it.

The Maths Standard paper design for 2026-27 points the same way, but it counts marks, not questions. Of its 80 marks, 43 test remembering and understanding. Another 19 test applying, and 18 test analysing, judging and creating.

What do case-based questions look like in Class 10 Maths?

Case-based questions open with a short story, a table or a picture. In the 2026-27 sample paper, the three cases are about sanitiser sales, a round garden, and marks in a weekly test.

Each case has three parts. Parts (i) and (ii) are 1 mark each. Part (iii) is worth 2 marks and gives you a choice of two questions. You answer one.

The story hides a chapter you know. In the sanitiser case, small bottles cost ₹10 and large ones ₹15, and June's sales came to ₹12,750. Part (i) asks for an equation. The marking scheme gives its 1 mark for 10x + 15y = 12750. That is a pair of linear equations, dressed as a shop.

How are case-based questions marked?

Part by part, and step by step inside each part. It is the same step marking used across the paper - marks for each correct step, not just the answer.

Question 37 is the garden case. A point P is 18 m from the centre of a round garden of radius 9 m. Two tangents are drawn from P. Here is how the scheme splits its 4 marks.

• Part (i), 1 mark. The angle between the radius and the tangent is 90°. The scheme prints the reason beside it.
• Part (ii), 2 half marks. Half for setting up Pythagoras' rule in the right triangle. Half for the length, 9√3 m.
• Part (iii), 2 marks. 1 mark for working out the cosine, 9 ÷ 18 = ½. Half for the 60° angle. Half for the final 120°.

Two things follow. A hard part (iii) does not cancel the marks for parts (i) and (ii). And a part (iii) that stops halfway still keeps the steps already on the page.

How are case-based questions marked in Science?

The same way, in parts. Question 38 of the 2026-27 Science paper describes a school door lock. A switch sends current through a coil, and the magnet it makes pulls an iron bolt. Parts A and B are 1 mark each. Part C or D is worth 2 marks.

Part D asks how to make the magnetic field stronger. The Science marking scheme lists more turns, a shorter coil, or a soft iron core, and asks for "any two points". Each point is a value point - a separate fact the answer must name. Name two, because the scheme asks for two.

In Science, a diagram can carry marks of its own, as the 5-mark eye question in the same paper shows. Where the marks go in CBSE Science goes through each one.

How do you solve case-based questions in CBSE Class 10?

• Read the three parts before the story. Then you know which numbers to look for as you read.
• Name the chapter. Tangents, linear equations, averages. Once you know the chapter, the story is a question you have seen before.
• Write down what the story gives you. Radius 9 m, distance 18 m. It turns a paragraph into data you can use.
• Answer each part as its own question. Label it (i), (ii) or (iii). Show the steps, even in the 1-mark parts.
• Choose one option in part (iii). Pick the one whose chapter you know better, and answer only that one.

Case studies come at the end of the paper, where time runs short. How to split the three hours by marks keeps about 24 minutes for them in Maths.

How do you prepare for competency-based questions?

Practise with CBSE's own material first. CBSE has made Competency Focused Practice Questions for Grade 10 Science, with booklets for five subjects. The preface says each subjective question comes with "a detailed scoring rubric" - a guide to what earns marks.

• Mark your answer against the rubric or scheme. Find which step or value point you missed, not just whether the answer matched.
• Explain an idea in your own words. A competency question is new on the surface. If you can explain the idea plainly, you can spot it under a new story.
• Write full answers, not just the result. How to write answers the marking scheme can mark shows which steps carry marks.

Where the marks go when a known answer falls short is covered in why students lose marks they actually knew.

What about ICSE Class 10?

ICSE papers are set by CISCE, a different board, so the CBSE share above does not apply. CISCE's report on the 2025 ICSE Maths paper asks students to solve past papers and "the specimen paper". That is the sample paper CISCE puts on its website. How the CBSE and ICSE papers compare sets out what differs between them.

For ICSE Physics, how step marks work in ICSE numericals covers the working the examiner looks for.

About the author

Deepti Sardana

Founder Member & Academic Lead

An IIT alumna (M.Sc., M.Phil.) with over 25 years in teaching, child psychology and learning assessment. As Academic Lead at EduBrahma, she leads the method TRUtesting uses to find where and why a child loses marks.

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