New Delhi, March 3 (IANS) The month-long exam schedule for class 12 students of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) began Wednesday with a challenging physics paper while some Class 10 students appeared for Music, an optional subject.

The Class 10 students of the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) Board began their exams with English language paper.

Emerging from examination centres here, students burst into animated discussions about the lengthy questions and a printing mistake which ate up time at their physics exam.

'The lengthy questions of five marks were easy to attempt, but the three and two markers were application based and a bit challenging,' said a student outside a south Delhi centre.

Manisha, a Class 12 student from Ramjas School, said: 'The first half of the paper took up most of the time. One question had a printing mistake. The graph had indicated wrong direction of the flow of current.'

'I was tense. But the paper was good. I felt confident after attempting the first few questions,' said Sarita, another student.

Over 1.6 million students are sitting for the CBSE examinations at over 5,500 centres spread across the country and abroad. This year 902,517 students of Class 10 and 699,129 of Class 12 will appear for the exams. Of these, around 20,000 are students from Gulf countries.

While Class 12 Science students appeared for the physics examination, the Class 10 students had their instrumental and vocal music (Carnatic and Hindustani) examination Wednesday.

'It was an easy examination of just 25 marks since the practical assessment is done. I was happy,' said Veena, a student who took up the optional subject this year.

Around 113,651 students of Class 12 and 56,208 of Class 10 across the country will appear for the ICSE and the Indian School Certificate (ISC) exams this month.

In Delhi and the national capital region, which includes Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ghaziabad, some 29 schools follow the ICSE format for Class 10 exams and 18 follow the ISC format for Class 12.

Nearly 1,874 ICSE students sat for the English language paper Wednesday.

Some residential schools in the capital held prayer meetings in the morning for students appearing for the board exams. Others had parents accompanying them to the examination centres with last minute tips.

On Thursday, Class 12 commerce students will appear for the CBSE Business Studies programme, while Class 10 CBSE students will appear for social studies Friday.

The CBSE initiated a new grading system for Class 10 from last year to take pressure off students who are appearing for the annual board exam. The performance of the students throughout the year is assessed via a grading system.