View Full Version : Exam had answers on back
StarsOfCCTV
22-05-2008, 10:14
Don't they do a random quality control test as they take them out of the printer? :searchme: I'm taking OCR for Biology...hmmm...
Thousands of teenagers are facing uncertainty over their exams after their GCSE music papers were found to have the answers on the back.
The paper - taken across England - apparently featured a list of composers, which related to the answers to questions written on the other side.
Examination board Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations (OCR) has said pupils will not be asked to resit the paper.
The problem came to light at schools in Herefordshire and Worcestershire.
Some pupils apparently noticed the errors while others did not.
In a statement OCR said: "OCR regrets that a printing error may have affected a small number of marks on the GCSE Music question paper.
"We are putting procedures in place to identify the effect, if any, this had on candidates and to make allowances accordingly to ensure that no candidate is disadvantaged."
The exam board said it believed "thousands of pupils" could be affected.
Last year OCR's music GCSE was taken by 12,637 candidates - roughly a fifth of the total number of students taking music GCSE (61,249).
General secretary of the NASUWT teaching union Chris Keates said it was an incident which showed once again that exam boards were "accident prone".
"This puts a shadow over pupils' exams and adds to the anxiety. No system is perfect and we would not expect it to be but the exam boards seem to have a dubious track record."
:eek: I wonder what they are going to do. I mean maybe some students didnt see it but some did
StarsOfCCTV
22-05-2008, 12:06
I can't believe some didn't notice. :lol: But it's quite bad, I mean, if they can't re-sit they've lost a GCSE!
So they wont allow the grade to go through. Thats a bit unfair cos some might not have looked, but then again some others would have
.:SpIcYsPy:.
22-05-2008, 15:22
LMAO! Have you seen the BBC homepage? It made me LOL!
I think it's sooo unfair that they don't get a grade, they should be able to resit it then!
and they talk about students being dim and exams being to easy, with people writng the papers not noticing the answers we got no hope.
:lol: Just saw the homepage.
This is soo stupid, arent they suppose to take time anc care over exam papers?
you would have though considering the papers where written well in advance like 2 years ago. Its hard hard to notice!
They write them 2 years ago! :eek:
How did the invigilators not notice? Our papers are placed front down on the desk whilst they are being given out.
So, if you found the answers at the back of the paper what would you do? Copy them or try not to look?
StarsOfCCTV
22-05-2008, 16:13
It's pretty hard to not copy once you've seen them! I'd probably put my hand up and get some over and then go "erm..look.." :p
I agree it would be pretty hard not to copy, plus I think I would tell someone
.:SpIcYsPy:.
22-05-2008, 23:00
Yeah I would be a bit confused and probably not realise what was going on then tell the invidulators!
DaVeyWaVey
22-05-2008, 23:20
To be honest, I probably would copy the answers on the back and not say anything. It would be the exam board's fault for printing the answers on the paper in the first place! How on earth did they not notice?!
StarsOfCCTV
22-05-2008, 23:24
They probably went oh look answers lets just pretend we didn't see them :lol:
According to the news they don't have to re-sit them. So I guess they are accepting them :hmm:
This is an awful situtation, they cant re-sit as its not fair on them and not there fault
But if they accept them, what if some cheated?
There's no way to tell who looked and copied, who looked and did their own work and who didn't have a clue the answers were there. To assume everybody copied the answers would be silly. To assume people looked and didn't copy would also be silly. Ergo you can't make everyone resit the exam.
Anyway, the exam board wouldn't make people resit. New questions would have to be set, new tapes would have to be recorded then there's the papers to print and the delay in marking which would delay the exam results being published which could affect places for further education in September.
They could probably tell if someone got much higher than their mock grades (they have to send them off incase papers go missing when they are being sent off for marking in final exams,) but then again it could be down to them not having revised for their mock and doing loads for the real thing.
My friend did a music exam last week; I'll have to ask her if she is with OCR or saw any answers on the back of her paper.
I don't think schools have to send mocks papers off. I thought they were just for the school to see what areas need to be covered more thoroughly. I can't imagine exam boards wanting thousands of mock papers that aren't going to be marked by their moderators.
They don't send the papers, just the results.
Why would exams boards want mock exam results? Mocks are done in December/January before courses have finished so candidates would obviously get lower marks in mocks as they haven't covered the whole syllabus. They would have very little reflection on the actual GCSE grades candidates get.
It's a forecast. Most candidates move up a grade between their mocks and real exams, so in the event that scripts from real exams are lost in the post or whatever, the exam board awards the candidate concerned a grade higher than what they got in their mock. They need them for that because they can't just give a candidate no grade, or make one up.
DaVeyWaVey
23-05-2008, 18:49
I know for my Drama GCSE, the mock grades were sent off to the exam board, just in case one of the candidates had a serious accident and couldn't take the actual GCSE exam, they would use their mock grade to make up their final GCSE grade if they couldn't take the actual GCSE exam.
All of my mock grades were sent off; maybe it's up to the school whether they submit them or not then, or some schools just don't tell the students that they are sending them off.
I didn't do my mocks so I wasn't told about sending marks away. None of my friends mentioned them though so maybe they didn't know either.
I never knew they got sent off!
StarsOfCCTV
23-05-2008, 19:05
Me neither! Our mocks were terrible though, we did them in classrooms and in one of my food tech one the supply teacher let people talk and left the room a few times! So if they were sent off they weren't going to be very accurate mocks :lol:
Our science ones definitely weren't. We did one whole GCSE in year 10 and one was for this year, so we did our mock on about 3 months work. The questions were a completely different styles and most failed. Our teacher said he's praying our real papers don't go missing after the mock grades that got sent off.
But everyone knows that people do very bad in the mocks, I hate to think they look at those grades
it makes me wonder how exam boards can make mistakes. With my exams at the minute nearly every paper i have had have had a mistake on it and they have had to stop the exam to let us know. Since reading this story seems to make me aware of it. What ever happened to proof reading.
StarsOfCCTV
23-05-2008, 23:13
I spotted a grammatical mistake in my AQA paper tutut :nono: :lol:
I spotted a grammatical mistake in my AQA paper tutut :nono: :lol:
What did it say?
I always spot them in textbooks
StarsOfCCTV
23-05-2008, 23:46
Explain and illustrate two criticisms of the teleological arguments
I guess it could confuse someone who hadn't revised lol
Ooo, you see I think they always make mistakes, and cos of them, I can never understand the questions
I keep spotting them in my AQA endorsed text book for Science. Edexcel are the worst though; in my Maths mock it said calculator paper and then in the materials required for examination bit it said "You may not use a calculator for any question in this paper." :lol:
:eek: Thats makes no sense!
Almost as bad as the printing error with the answers on the back of the music paper! :lol:
No system is infalliable but you would think that someone would proof read exam papers before and after they are printed.
Yeah, definitely. They have to check them to ensure that the questions can be done fairly in the time anyway.
You think that they would be proof read several times!
More than several, I'd think. The examiners probably get bored of it and do the proof reading when they're tired; that or not do it at all.
My second English paper clearly hadn't been checked very well; on the front where they say that you can't use a dictionary they bolded 'use' instead of 'not.'
StarsOfCCTV
05-06-2008, 20:02
My history paper last week said Don't write in pencil. Write in Blue or Black pencil.
OCR :rolleyes:
.:SpIcYsPy:.
05-06-2008, 20:44
:searchme: What's going on suddenly! - or has it always been like this but we are only beginning to take notice?
We are only allowed to write in black ink now yet they still right blue or black pen.
I don't get that one either..
StarsOfCCTV
05-06-2008, 21:05
Yeah we are only allowed to use black. They probably made the paper I did before that rule came in.
Yeah, I'm finding that. I don't see the difference if the papers are being sent by post to the examiners either. I wish they'd all just do black or black and blue.
StarsOfCCTV
05-06-2008, 21:32
It's because they scan them into computers and give them to the examiners instead of marking them by hand. Blue can't be scanned for some reason.
They said that we could use blue pen if we didn't have black but they'd prefer us to use black. All my other exams it was only black pen.
Some exam boards don't scan them though, and yet they still say no blue pen.
It depends on the exam board and the subject I think. The multiple choice answer sheets used to be done in pencil only but now its changed to black ballpoint pen. I think those ones are marked by a computer.
I dont mind, I always use black ink anyway :)
So do I, I hate writing in blue. There's something not right about it.
It depends on the exam board and the subject I think. The multiple choice answer sheets used to be done in pencil only but now its changed to black ballpoint pen. I think those ones are marked by a computer.
Yeah those ones are. Edexcel are now entirely on computer, but AQA aren't. That's why I couldn't understand why I had to use black ink in my English exams.
So do I, I hate writing in blue. There's something not right about it.
I know, I feel like my handwriting looks worse
di marco
06-06-2008, 09:42
So do I, I hate writing in blue. There's something not right about it.
I know, I feel like my handwriting looks worse
i never really use black, i mostly use blue, dunno why really
.:SpIcYsPy:.
06-06-2008, 10:24
I use blue and I think my writing looks odd in black so I find it quite annoying but oh well! :) x
I always use black but that is probably due to the fact that blue ink does not photocopy very well at times and any legal stuff always needs to be signed in a black pen.
StarsOfCCTV
06-06-2008, 12:25
I use blue...:p My writing always looks messier in black :lol:
I always wonder why black ink though, cos I remember in primary school when we started to write in pens instead of pencils we were always given blue pens
Black is a 'serious' colour, it dominates others and is really dark (metaphorically) whereas blue is a more 'happy' colour.
We always had black pens.
di marco
06-06-2008, 16:27
we always had blue cos in primary school we werent allowed to use biro we had to use ink pens so we always used blue
di marco
06-06-2008, 16:31
I use blue...:p My writing always looks messier in black :lol:
lol my mum says that!
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