Marks in Board exams will make or mar prospects of students in securing seats in prestigious institutions like IITs, NITs, IIITs etc. The grind, the toil, the midnight-oil burning is on -with a touch of difference -among the Intermediate and Class XII students taking the the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Indian Council of Secondary Education (ICSE) exams, better known as the Board Exams.

For, there is a complete shift from their usual study strategy . Earlier, maximum time was spent in preparing for competitive exams such IIT-JEE, AIEEE, Eamcet and JIPMER, with a focus on the Board Exams.

Now, for the first time, 40 per cent marks secured in the Board Exams will have a bearing, along with the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) mains, to secure seats in institutions like the IITs, IIITs and the NIITs. The percentage of marks required in the Boards is even more that the 25 per cent weightage for engineering, agriculture and medical common entrance test (Eamcet) conducted by the state. Another notable feature beginning this year is that only those students who remain in the Top 20-per centile bracket in the Board Exams will be allowed to appear for the new JEE (Advanced), for admission to IITs. For that, they also need to figure in the Top 150,000 rankers' list of JEE (Mains). In this way, the Board Exam marks have a `triple significance' this time round.

This has resulted in the number of students enrolled with coaching centres for the Board Exams going up significantly . Even parents are not taking a chance and spending staggering amounts on their children's coaching classes.

Almost all the coaching centres in the city have launched `crash courses' to aid students to revise the entire 10+2 syllabus by end of January. And they charge anything between `10,000 and `50,000, depending on the subjects chosen.

The new examination trend is not without its share of criticism from academicians. They say that the new weightage policy of the Centre, which was primarily aimed to do away with the `coaching culture', doing just the opposite.