ISC Class 12 Maths Previous Year Question Papers with Solutions (2020-2026)

There was no ISC board exam in 2021, because CISCE cancelled it during COVID-19, so the table goes from 2022 back to 2020.

Know this before you plan your practice: 2026 was the last ISC Maths paper with a choice between Section B and Section C. The 2027 paper has a new layout, explained further down.

ISC Maths 2026 question paper: chapter-wise marks

We added up the marks in the 2026 paper chapter by chapter. Section A carried 65 marks and was compulsory. After that, candidates answered either Section B or Section C, worth 15 marks each.

• Relations and functions, with inverse trigonometry: 10 marks
• Matrices and determinants: 10 marks
• Calculus: 32 marks (continuity and differentiability 7, applications of derivatives 9, integrals 9, differential equations 7)
• Probability: 13 marks
• Section B: vectors 5, three-dimensional geometry 6, area using integration 4
• Section C: calculus in commerce and economics 5, linear regression 6, linear programming 4
• Question types in Section A: 15 one-mark parts (11 MCQs, two of them assertion-reason and two built on a pair of statements), five 2-mark, four 4-mark and four 6-mark questions. Six Section A questions had an internal choice, and so did two questions in each of Sections B and C.

Source: CISCE ISC 2026 Mathematics question paper (860) and the ISC Mathematics syllabus, Gradehunt analysis. Each sub-part is counted under one chapter.

Our totals match the unit marks in CISCE's Section A/B/C syllabus to the mark, so the board followed its own weightage table exactly. Calculus alone took almost half of Section A.

Four Section A questions were word problems worth 20 marks between them: a bakery's prices found by the matrix method, a ball-transfer game (or a probability table in the other option), a cash van's route to two ATMs on a hill, and a gardener deciding when to plant from a rain forecast. Expect long questions to come wrapped in a story like these.

How much time per question in the ISC Maths paper

Three hours for 80 marks works out to 2 minutes 15 seconds a mark. On the 2026 layout that is about 34 minutes for the fifteen 1-mark parts, 4 to 5 minutes for a 2-mark question, 9 minutes for a 4-mark one and 13 to 14 minutes for a 6-mark one.

Use the 15 minutes of reading time to choose between the OR options and to decide which long question you will do first.

ISC Maths 2027: what changes from the 2026 paper

• No more Section B or C choice. The 2027 syllabus makes every unit compulsory: relations and functions 10, algebra 10, calculus 35, vectors 5, three-dimensional geometry 6, linear programming 5 and probability 9.
• Linear regression and the commerce uses of calculus are not in the 2027 unit list. Students who used to pick Section C now have to prepare vectors and 3D geometry.
• The 2027 specimen paper has 20 questions in four sections: twenty 1-mark parts (17 of them MCQs), seven 2-mark, seven 3-mark and five 5-mark questions. Three questions in each of Sections B, C and D have an internal choice.
• Each specimen question is tagged with the skill it tests, such as Understand, Apply or Analyse. CISCE's circular of 9 October 2026 says questions testing apply, analyse, evaluate and create will carry about 50% of the marks in 2027.

So how do the older papers fit in? Section A of every paper in the table still covers most of the 2027 syllabus. Do Section B and the linear programming question from Section C in every year, whatever your stream, and skip the regression and cost-function questions. Finish with the 2027 specimen paper, since it is the only one written in the new format.

Where ISC Maths students lost marks in 2025

CISCE's Analysis of Pupil Performance for 2025 reports 49,630 ISC Maths candidates, an average of 66 out of 100, a highest score of 100 and a lowest of 11. Its examiners listed these as topics candidates found difficult or mixed up:

• Probability problems, Bayes' theorem in particular
• Linear programming, and finding an area using integration
• Symmetric versus skew-symmetric matrices, and the basic properties of determinants
• Increasing versus strictly increasing functions
• Picking the right type of integral or differential equation before solving it
• Regression coefficient versus the equation of the regression line

Several of these came back in 2026: a two-statement MCQ on where a graph increases or decreases (Q1 viii), a conditional probability part in Q13, the area under a semicircle in Q18 and a linear programming problem in Q22. The same report asks candidates to practise assertion-reason and Statement I/Statement II items and to sketch graphs often.

How to use these ISC Maths papers

• Write the 2026 paper first, in one sitting of three hours, and mark it against the solution.
• Then do 2025, 2024 and 2023 as timed papers. Their layout is the same as 2026.
• Use the two 2022 semester papers for chapter practice. Each semester covered only part of the syllabus, so they are not full-length mocks. The 2020 paper is a full board paper, so use it as one more timed mock.
• Keep a list of every mark you drop, sorted by chapter, and revise those chapters before the next paper.

If you want the board questions from 2016 to 2026 worked out step by step and sorted chapter by chapter, get Gradehunt's ISC Class 12 10 Years Solved Papers (PYQ).

Need the full topic list? Read our ISC Class 12 Maths syllabus guide. We also have solved past papers for ISC Physics and ISC Chemistry.