Kamal Ghorui
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 10 English Language and Literature examination was conducted today, February 21, from 10:30 AM to 1:30 PM. Following the conclusion of the paper, the question paper PDF has been made available for students, teachers and parents to download and review. The document will help candidates analyse the pattern, difficulty level and types of questions asked in the examination.For the 2026 board exams, there were a total of 25, 08, 319 Class 10 candidates who sat for the exams held at 8, 075 examination centers spread all over the country, in which 83 subjects were covered. Among the total candidates, 14, 08, 546 were boys and the rest 10, 99, 773 were girls. The huge examination was held in a single shift under the normal rules of CBSE.Download CBSE Class 10 English Question Paper PDFStudents who took the test as well as those who are going to the boards next time can download the CBSE Class 10 English question paper 2026 PDF from the board’s website or other sources to get an idea of the pattern and marks distribution. Going through the question paper helps students to evaluate their performance, make an approximate calculation of their marks, and figure out the important areas for preparation.The paper complied with the prescribed pattern and included reading comprehension, writing skills, grammar, and literature from the NCERT textbooks.Student feedback: Paper easy and directInitial reactions collected by TOI Education from students of Govt Boys Senior Secondary School, Tukhmirpur, School No. 2 suggest that the overall difficulty level was easy.Rizwan said, “The paper was easy; we will not term it moderate or hard. It was better than the Maths paper, which was difficult, especially the Basic Maths paper, though the Standard Maths paper was relatively easier.”Ishrar added, “The questions were directly asked from the NCERT, and the passages were simple. We could understand them easily and answer without confusion.”Ishan noted that while the paper was manageable overall, “some questions in the grammar section were a bit difficult, especially reported speech.”What the question paper showsA review of the paper indicates that most questions were competency-based but predictable for students who had prepared thoroughly from NCERT and sample papers. The reading section was clear and scoring, while the writing tasks followed standard formats. The literature questions focused on themes, character understanding and textual interpretation.
