Bengaluru, July 14 : Girls fared better than boys in Karnataka's Pre-University Course (PUC) board exams whose results were declared across the southern state on Tuesday. "As in the past, girls secured an overall 68.73 per cent compared with 54.77 per cent by boys in the second-year PUC board exams, which were held from March 4-24 and the last paper (English) on June 18 due to Covid-induced extended lockdown to contain the virus spread," an official told IANS here. Of the 5,56,26 students who wrote the exams at around 1,000 centres across the state, 3,8,947 passed, taking the overall pass percentage to 61.80, marginally better than 61.73 per cent in 2019 during normal times. "As papers in all subjects except English were held before the lockdown was enforced from March 25, the performance of students has been consistent and marginally better than last year," asserted the official of the state PU Education Department. Science students topped the list, with 76.2 per cent followed by Commerce stream with 65.52 per cent and arts stream with 41.27 per cent, which is a drop of 8 per cent over the last academic year. "As in the past, Udupi district on the west coast retained its top position among the 30 districts across the state with 90.71 per cent overall," said the official. Due to lockdown guidelines and restrictions on movement of people and vehicles, the department has advised the students to download their scorecard from the board websites (Awww.karresults.nic.in) as their colleges are closed till further notice. "Students who did not appear for the exams in March or June can appear in the supplementary exams in early August along with the failed students and avoid missing an academic year," added the official. /IANS