Impossible exam question blunder in 2011 A-level + GCSE examinations!

trigger-happy

trigger-happy

trigger-happy

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It maybe a few weeks old but its still very relevant and is affecting many students including myself. Error's were found in AS and GCSE exam papers. Examination boards such as Edexcel, AQA and OCR exam papers are affected.

Daily telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/educatio...s-rocked-by-two-more-test-paper-blunders.html

The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jun/09/exam-board-watchdog-questions-errors

Sky News:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK...Level-And-GCSE-Papers/Article/201106216008111

Geography and mathematics exam papers along with business studies were effected. I'm currently taking business studies so they will be able to provide full marks for the impossible question but there is more! They say that because of this question students time management was disrupted and stress on students may have occurred causing the overall grade to be effected because of the impossible question, so the examination board may decide to give extra marks to questions that are uncompleted including the big 15 mark essay questions! :eek::eek:

If you think you did badly don't be upset! There still is hope! I seriously hope this wont happen again they are playing with peoples lives!
 
Apparently it happens every year but this year they've decided to put loads of media attention on it, probably because of the whole UNI fee's going up crap.
 
trigger-happy said:
They say that because of this question students time management was disrupted and stress on students may have occurred causing the overall grade to be effected because of the impossible question
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Does this really pass as stressful, if you cant cope with this how the hell will people manage in the real world, damn.

Hawker
 
pah, you kids these days have it so easy, back in my day (1 year ago) we had proper errors. in my biology exam they misspelt leukaemia. oh the stress it caused :p

you'd have thought that stuff like this shouldnt happen knowing the amount of checks that these papers go through
 
trigger-happy said:
Well that's what the letter says when my A level teacher announced it.
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Awww well then it must be a valid point, I withdraw my cynicism...

edit: no wait maybe a decent student would realise that the question was taking too much time and leave it in favour of getting the rest of the marks. Yeah that.

Reaper 392 said:
pah, you kids these days have it so easy, back in my day (1 year ago) we had proper errors. in my biology exam they misspelt leukaemia. oh the stress it caused :p

you'd have thought that stuff like this shouldnt happen knowing the amount of checks that these papers go through
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Lol back in my day (a whole 9 years ago ;)) I had to work out that my results were wrong and get them to remark them, raised me almost 2 grades on one paper.

But yes this is stupid and shouldn't happen.

Hawker
 
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I don't understand why people should get extra marks for not completing later questions. All through GCSE, A-Level and university you are told to only put about a minute a mark into every question. One of the question was a 4 marker was it not (read the article about a week ago), why the hell are people spending that long on it that it's affecting other questions. If you're that stupid then you deserve to lose marks, look at the question, can't work it out for a couple of minutes? Then move on and leave it until the end...
 
I think the problem is examiners are trying to make their exams more difficult while still retaining the same syllabus and depth of knowledge required for previous exams. The way that they do this is just to structure their questions more like puzzles, but sometimes they fail to construct these puzzles properly and hence they're made impossible. Really exam boards should just expand their syllabuses rather than resorting to constructing problems which are becoming more tests of abstract thinking than understanding of the material.
 
Well everyone got the same error (or at least everyone sitting with that exam board). The press presumably do pounce on these things and I'd guess in some circumstances where a question is ambiguous examiners will have to give full marks for any plausible answer given the ambiguity. I agree though, it is really silly and shouldn't happen.

I'd also argue that we need bell curve grading with fixed % grade boundaries - not only would this help in this circumstance, everyone affected by the same error etc... no need for arbitrary mark moderation, but it would also stop the year on year grade inflation which IMO only serves to devalue the qualifications.
 
Amp34 said:
I don't understand why people should get extra marks for not completing later questions. All through GCSE, A-Level and university you are told to only put about a minute a mark into every question. One of the question was a 4 marker was it not (read the article about a week ago), why the hell are people spending that long on it that it's affecting other questions. If you're that stupid then you deserve to lose marks, look at the question, can't work it out for a couple of minutes? Then move on and leave it until the end...
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This really. If you're stupid enough to spent more than the accepted amount of time on the question then you deserve to lose marks. All they should do is ignore the marks for the impossible question. This compensation for lost time and "Stress" etc is just bull crap baby pampering.
 
trigger-happy said:
Geography and mathematics exam papers along with business studies were effected. I'm currently taking business studies so they will be able to provide full marks for the impossible question but there is more! They say that because of this question students time management was disrupted and stress on students may have occurred causing the overall grade to be effected because of the impossible question, so the examination board may decide to give extra marks to questions that are uncompleted including the big 15 mark essay questions! :eek::eek:
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HangTime said:
I surely can't be the only one to chuckle that that :)
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No.
 
I think that while a small incorrect question might throw a candidate a little,and major problems would indicate them not having good exam technique, my main concern is that reliance on exam technique should be reduced as much as possible - in the real world I doubt your boss will be happy if you tell him 'oh, I didn't finish that report, I couldn't get my calculations to match up with the log book' (Well I suppose he might be, who knows - I'm just a schoolboy). I imagine that in the real world, tracking down mistakes is important, and extra time should be spent on finding out where errors are, and so I don't think the 'bad exam technique lol' attitude helps much - it might be true, but it shouldn't have to play so much of a part. Then there's the factor that not everyone sitting that A-level will have sat that paper - some will have sat it with different boards, having different syllabi, and different papers - while I am against this fragmentation, I can't help but see this as another reason to merge them all - that way checks currently spread over many papers could be concentrated on one paper, post A-level education would be based on common foundations, and mistakes in papers would have affected everyone (well ok, not resitters - maybe I'm stretching this point a bit).

Anyway, awful system, disgraceful failures from exam boards, doubt much will change.
 
Given how many people are meant to check the papers before the pupils sit them, whats that say about their education. If the people setting the questions aren't capable what chance do the students have.
 
Good preparation for life, then.

I'm going to play the, "oh, boo hoo" card on this one. **** happens. The markers will probably zero the affected questions and if students time management is that hinged on one question, they deserve all they get.
 
meghatronic said:
Good preparation for life, then.

I'm going to play the, "oh, boo hoo" card on this one. **** happens. The markers will probably zero the affected questions and if students time management is that hinged on one question, they deserve all they get.
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I sat the maths exam, the question was worth 11% of the paper. Now I want an A* so want 90% plus on all my exams. I therefore spent over 20 minutes after I had finished every other question trying to get the answer given but could not achieve it. Its not just playing the boo hoo card as it was a huge mistake for the exam board to do when they know that the highest students would have tried that question first because it was worth the most marks on the paper.
 
A bright student should realise the question is impossible, write so and move on. If you couldn't work out that the question was impossible, then surely you wouldn't have gotten the answer right if it had been possible to answer? ;)

This kind of crap happens all the time. You never get screwed over as a result. I remember a friend sat a CPD exam (so a bit more serious than GCSEs, it was for a Diploma in Personal Financial Services). The examiner managed to lose the completed papers and as a way of saving face, enforced no rules on the resit. They had candidates doing papers together, openly 'cheating' and a blind eye was turned. Somewhat unsurprisingly, every adviser that sat the resit passed with flying colours :rolleyes:
 
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