What your Class 10 marks actually predict, and what they do not
Eighty per cent does not mean Science. Here is what the marks are good evidence for, what they are weak evidence for, and the question they cannot answer at all.
READ ARTICLE → 8 min Stream choicePCM, PCB or Commerce: the questions worth asking before the form
Most families argue about the answer. The families who get this right argue about the evidence first, and the answer follows in about twenty minutes.
READ ARTICLE → 10 min CBSE rulesMaths 041 or Applied Maths 241, and what the CBSE relaxation really says
Taking Basic Maths in Class 10 does not close engineering. It does add a conversation with your Head of School, and a deadline most families find out about too late.
READ ARTICLE → 7 min Exam strategyNegative marking is a skill, and almost nobody teaches it
Under plus four minus one, guessing pays whenever you can beat one in five. Most students who lose marks to negative marking are not reckless. They are the opposite.
READ ARTICLE → 9 min CLATCLAT is a reading exam that calls itself a law exam
One hundred and twenty questions in one hundred and twenty minutes, almost all of it hung off passages. If you read at 180 words a minute, the paper is over before the law starts.
READ ARTICLE → 8 min Cognitive skillsWhat a cognitive profile can tell you, and what it cannot
It is not an IQ score, it does not predict a career, and it says nothing about how hard your child works. It is still one of the more useful hours you can spend.
READ ARTICLE → 9 min JEEThe Mains to Advanced drop, and what it actually tells you
Plenty of students hold 85 per cent on Mains-pattern questions and fall to 40 on Advanced ones. The size of that fall says more about the next six months than either number does alone.
READ ARTICLE → 9 min NEETNEET is decided in Biology, and lost in Physics
Biology is half the paper and the half most students are already good at. Which is why the marks that decide a seat are usually the ones going missing somewhere else.
READ ARTICLE → 9 min IPMATIPMAT Indore, Rohtak and JIPMAT are three different papers
Most students prepare for one and sit all three. The sectional clock at Indore alone changes what a good score looks like, and it is the one nobody practises against.
READ ARTICLE → 9 min BITSATBITSAT rewards a skill no other entrance exam tests
Finish all 130 questions and it offers you 12 more, worth three marks each, and locks everything behind you. Deciding whether to walk through that door is the exam.
READ ARTICLE → 8 min NATAThe NATA drawing paper is not an art exam
It is not looking for a beautiful picture. It is looking for whether you can hold a three dimensional idea in your head and put it on paper so somebody else can read it.
READ ARTICLE → 8 min Career guidanceWhat a career psychometric is for, and what it is not
It cannot tell your child what to be. It can tell you which conversations you have been avoiding, which is more useful and much less comfortable.
READ ARTICLE → 10 min For schoolsYour school now has to appoint a career counsellor. What that means for you
CBSE changed its affiliation rules in January 2026. One counsellor per five hundred students, separate from the wellness counsellor, and most schools do not have one yet.
READ ARTICLE → 7 minWhy there is no post here telling you to start early
You already know that. You have been hearing it from every direction since Class 8, and none of it told you what to do on the Tuesday afternoon when your child says they are not sure about Biology any more.
What we write about instead is the small number of decisions that are actually reversible, the deadlines that make them irreversible, and how to tell the difference between evidence and a strong opinion delivered confidently.
Ask us something specific if what you need is not here. We give you the straight answer, whatever it turns out to be.