8th June 2017 1:00
By Blue Tutors
The past fortnight has seen several exam paper errors, most of which were made by the exam board OCR. OCR is one of the main examination boards in the UK, its main competitors being AQA and Edexcel. The OCR psychology A level paper, taken by around 5000 students, asked students to “calculate the mean percentage of words” when the questions involved analysing data from a maths test containing only numbers. This badly worded question caused confusion for many students, some of which attempted to answer it according to their interpretation. This error is another blow to their credibility following the GCSE English exam problems in this same academic year.
Both AQA chemistry and OCR biology papers were taken by 20,000 students. In the later, students were asked to calculate a standard deviation without being provided with the formula, as promised in the syllabus document. The mistake was only spotted once exams were underway leaving schools and students uncertain what to do. The question is worth 3% overall and students have now been told to wait until marking when OCR will “assess the impact” of the erroneous question.
AQA have arguably handled the situation with much more clarity. In contrast to OCR, schools were warned about the AQA chemistry mistake concerning a two-mark question, and many invigilators of the chemistry exam told students to ignore the question completely. The exam board has already announced that all students will be given full marks on this question irrespective of what answer is given.
With A level results being so critical in determining a student’s future, namely admission to university for over a third of those taking the examinations, on an individual student basis, errors like these can have far reaching effects. Equally, in an increasingly diverse and international market for secondary qualifications, these high-profile blunders undermine the credibility of not only the exam boards involved, but the UK education sector as a whole.