New Delhi: The number of students scoring a full 100 in subjects has come down to 5,071 this year from 7,631 in 2007 in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 10 examinations, and the reason is the new exam pattern called 'HOTS'.

The High Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) was the new basis of the question papers in the Class 10 exams this year. It is an analytical problem solving process, geared to assess the students' absorption of knowledge and its application.

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"The average performance and pass percentage has increased across the board but the number of perfect scorers has gone down. The new question pattern to judge students' knowledge base could be the reason," CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly said.

There is a substantial decline in the number of candidates who have bagged the 'perfect score' in Mathematics. "As against 5,251 students last year, this year just 2,647 students have scored 100 out of 100 in Mathematics."

Similarly, in Social Science, only 598 students have scored a full 100 as against 1,233 last year.

Ganguly said: "We are not going to bring any change in the question pattern. HOTS is a good formula to judge the holistic knowledge of students."

"Once the teachers make the classroom more inclusive and bring in thinking skills, students will do much better," he said.

The chairman, however, added that there are several subjects in which more students have scored the 'perfect 100' than the previous year. Science and Technology, Sanskrit and introductory IT are some of the papers in which more students have scored full marks.

The CBSE on Thursday announced the Class 10 results. Both in India and abroad, over 765,000 students appeared for the examinations and 87.08 percent cleared it. The pass percentage has increased by 2.64 percent from last year.

Of the six regions in India, Chennai topped with the highest pass percentage of 95.26, followed by Ajmer (94.22 percent), Allahabad (89.1 percent), Panchkula (89.07 percent), and Delhi (82.87 percent). Guwahati was at the bottom with a pass percentage of 57.29 percent. IANS