Errors in exam papers

Six7th

Six7th

Six7th

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-13857911

What do people think of this? I think its ridiculous to be honest...first an impossible question on one of the maths exams and now these errors. It completely throws the student off course when they can't figure out how to do something, especially when they take much longer than needed on the question. I took the physics exam today but didn't even notice the error :o, however in some schools the pupils were allowed extra time an extra 10 minute in some cases...which is completely unfair. Those 10 minutes could be the difference between a grade and the difference between getting into uni or not.

It's quite clear that they don't go through enough checking or proof reading and in some cases they obviously haven't even attempted the exam...I hope someone does lose their job over this!
 
It's despicable. Surely it must simply be money saving by the exam boards?
It's not only the time wasted attempting that question, but also some students will then panic and be in the mindset of "ZOMG how can I be soo thick I can't even do the first question" and then mess up elsewhere :(.



That said, just had the results of my first year Uni exams and in discrete maths I only got 99%... so there was blatantly an error on the paper! :p
 
Students will end up going into the exam and be asked to find the incorrect question.
I sat of the incorrect Maths papers, if I don't get the grade I need should I sue OCR for the additional expense of increaced uni fees!
 
Exam boards are a bunch of jokers and with grade inflation the whole thing is a mess. The whole thing needs ripping up and starting afresh.

That said, if you spend so long on a single question it seriously affects your marks then you are a bit lacking in exam technique to say the least.
 
It is a bit stupid how some of this stuff isn't getting noticed when being looked through before the exams are taken.

And most of these are only the major mistakes that have been noticed by vast amounts of people, other mistakes haven't been mentioned at all.

In my GCSE English higher tier exam there was a section of text taken from a book but they made atleast one grammatical error and so half of it made no sense.

I was forced to waste a good couple of minutes trying to find the page that the extract had come from because the exam board weren't mentally capable of being able to copy from a book without making a mistake...
 
joemo13 said:
Students will end up going into the exam and be asked to find the incorrect question.
I sat of the incorrect Maths papers, if I don't get the grade I need should I sue OCR for the additional expense of increaced uni fees!
Click to expand...

Jesus Christ, just as well it wasn't an English exam!
 
I find it hard to believe someone doesn't sit the exam prior to it being set. When i was at school my teachers would sit the exam beforehand to pre-warn us of any issues, although any papers we had, there was never any issues. Although i believe one class was told not to bother with a certain question.
 
It's the problem with exams getting easier, now there aren't enough clever people left to actually write the exams.




I don't actually think exams are getting easier or harder, and the above is to be taken entirely tongue in cheek
 
Don't be stupid and waste your time doing a question you can't do. Move on and ignore it. Exam technique is *critical* in getting good marks.
 
Hxc said:
Don't be stupid and waste your time doing a question you can't do. Move on and ignore it. Exam technique is *critical* in getting good marks.
Click to expand...

Oh I can do this one no problem, dum de dum dum... What?!?! Why is this not what they ask for, checks working, checks again, sees no mistake. Moves on distressed to another question.

An impossible question can throw people with the best of exam technique
 
Hxc said:
Don't be stupid and waste your time doing a question you can't do. Move on and ignore it. Exam technique is *critical* in getting good marks.
Click to expand...

What you said is true, but we should expect a completely error free exam with all questions answerable. Whenever I come across a question I can't answer I tend to get a bit flustered and frustrated which can have an impact on how I answer the other questions.

This particular error in Physics didn't affect me, but it's completely unfair that some people were allowed extra time, some over 10 minutes apparently, for an error in a question that was worth 1 mark. They could have used that extra time to help them go up a grade, where as the people who didn't get the extra time are completely disadvantaged.
 
There've been small oversights in a couple of my exams at uni and theyve just been pointed out in the exam....stinks of being unprofessional and does throw you off, but theres nowt you can do.... just get on with it.
 
There were plenty of weird errors in my recent further education papers. The most obvious one was:

"Max is Sam's agent for the distribution of goods. Sam sells some goods under the agreement on Max's behalf..."

I read that about 4 times and was thinking.... "WHAT" especially as it was a multiple choice bloomin' answer. Thankfully, all the answers pointed out that Sam was the principal... I hope :eek:
 
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