Hello Aspirant,

On December 31st 2020, at 6:00 PM Our Hon'ble Education Minister Mr. Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank was live on his social media handles and he did announce that the CBSE board exams for class 10th and 12th for session 2020-21 will start from May 4th 2021 and will be completed by June 10th 2021 and after this the results will be declared by July 15th 2021. He also announced that the practical examinations will commence from March 1st 2021. The dates are decided in keeping the view of student's concerns so that they can get proper time for preparation. So now the dates are final and you have to complete your preparation accordingly.

Complete schedule for CBSE Board examinations can be downloaded from the official website of CBSE which is given below :-

https://cbse.nic.in

Now coming to your question, so yes from this year Pre-Board is mandatory to appear for CBSE board examinations. CBSE did announce that if the admit card will only be issued to those candidates who will appear in any one of the Pre-board examination conducted by their respective schools.

Usually, the CBSE board exam starts in the month of February. But this year, exams have been delayed to compensate with the study loss during the closing of schools because of outbreak of Corona virus. Also note that the board has also reduced the syllabus of Class 10 and 12 for the academic year 2020-21 which you can get from the link given below :-

Class 12th - https://school.careers360.com/articles/cbse-class-12-syllabus

Class 10th - https://school.careers360.com/articles/cbse-syllabus-for-class-10

I hope this information helps you.

Good Luck!!