When ‘Rousseau’ turned ‘Russian’ in PU’s BA pol-science paper!

In what signals that the examination branch of Panjab University needs to critically evaluate its working on an urgent basis, BA Political Science (honours) final year students were asked to ‘Critically evaluate the theory of revaluation of Karl Marx’ in the exam held on May 14. The question, of course, should have read Revolution instead of revaluation, but to students taking the exam, the comical error meant a loss of time and focus. There were four other errors of similar nature scattered across the question paper.

In Unit-1 of the question paper carrying questions worth 2 marks, students are asked, ‘Write names of two books of Habbes’. It is left to students to figure out that the question actually meant English philosopher ‘Hobbes’. Later, Hobbes is misspelt as Habbes on a questions on his political objection. In another question, French philosopher and thinker ‘Rousseau’ is referred to as Russian with a question reading thus, ‘Critically evaluate the general will of Russian’. The error is repeated elsewhere in the paper as well.

Varsity version

PU controller of examination Parvinder Singh said, “The question papers are usually hand-written manuscripts by teachers. The printer sometimes interprets it as he sees it and takes out copies. If such things happen, students are given the benefit in whatever way we can.”