Be Aware of these Examination Board Blunders

As students, it would be hard not to feel as though exam boards were the most powerful organisations in our world. They are the ones who award our marks and so it can seem as though they hold our future in their hands.

The national exam board determines what and when we need to learn. Not only that, they set the questions we need to answer and determine the method in which we answer.

An examination board whose job it is to set exam question papers controls what we study, and how many marks we are awarded for what we know.

However, if you are in high school or university, realise that you are not the only one who makes mistakes.

The big news here is that setting exam papers is done by humans who make mistakes. Even though we tend to revere the examination board, they too, are prone to mistakes.

We’re not here to point out the failings of the national exam board, however, it is important for students to know that errors can happen from their side too. Just because someone has the job of setting exam papers doesn’t mean that they are not human, right?

In this article, you will find some of the most shocking mistakes made by even a national examination board. From your side, to avoid error, check out our article on how to avoid common exam mistakes.

Let’s take a look at some of the worst howlers that exam boards have ever made. And you check can check out common mistakes and how to avoid them yourself here!

Mistakes Happen to Everyone

When you’re at school, it’ll feel like you are the only person in the world facing continual evaluation, assessment and criticism. It may even feel like you are not allowed to make mistakes. Even if you feel you are making endless mistakes, remember that in reality, you are not.

We all make mistakes which is why preparation is so important.

It’s the reason why practice tests and exams are so important.

Part of being human is making mistakes and even those who set exam question papers do it. And while it may not be the most comforting thing to hear, it is true. The national exam board is not perfect either.

Find out more about the most common exams made in an exam, and avoid them with the help of an online tutor.

Some of the Worst Examination Board Mistakes

Exam boards are managed by humans. Your exam papers are marked by humans. Throughout the process of marking, as well as administering and dispatching results, humans are involved.

Think about what we know about people. One thing we know for sure is that all humans make mistakes even those in authority setting exam papers.

Whether an examination board is setting Grade 10, National Matric Certificate or university-level papers, all of them are run the same way. All of them are dependent on humans to do the job whether they are setting exam papers for oral or multiple-choice testing.

This article emphasises the point that even though they do not give you the benefit of the doubt, you have to remember that they do make mistakes, even though this is rare.

To follow are some of the mistakes made by those who set exam question papers that we would all be better off forgetting.

The Wrong Maths Paper

We’ll use a UK example so as not to embarrass any South African exam boards or anyone local for that matter who has to set exam question papers.

Imagine that you are in the middle of your GCSEs (this is equivalent to Grade 10 in South Africa). You have been preparing for months, you have your schedule and you are finally ready for your GCSE mathematics exam.

On the exam date, you and your fellow students sit down in an exam hall where you are told to open your maths exam papers.

However, when you open the paper, you see that the questions have nothing to do with the level of maths you are studying at all. You notice that your GCSE seems to have been compiled at random. This disastrous case actually happened in 2016. Of course, students rapidly took to the internet to express their rage.

What is your plan to avoid examination mistakes yourself?

Typos in Test Papers

Typos are more or less a bit of a classical error when setting exam papers. This is actually rather surprising when you consider that every set of exam papers, from maths to English literature is proofread by about four or five different pairs of eyes.

In a particularly infamous UK (again!) example, mistakes were found in three national exams (Latin, maths and physics) in one round of examinations. Again, for some reason, it seems to be that Grade 10 maths in the UK is the most error-prone. If you are writing exams in South Africa, you can assume that similar instances are happening.

In the abovementioned Latin paper example, the names of the writers and characters in a few different literary works were incorrect. This might seem funny, but not when the students who were writing it were dependent on it.

By the way, this was not a small mistake. These exam papers were sent went out to a total of 50 000 thousand students from over 1000 schools and colleges!

If you set exam question papers would you triple-check your work?

Mistakes Made by Exam Markers

Here’s another UK example of an examination nightmare. In 2012, a whistle-blower decided to tell the world about the errors made by final GCSE (Grade 10) markers. To put it mildly, it caused a bit of a hoo-hah.

The difficulty was not that markers were erroneously marking papers, but rather that they would happily mark papers and then make mistakes when adding up the marks allocated to each separate page.

The alarming result was that final totals would correspond to a completely different grade within the overall grading system. In an attempt to have papers remarked, schools spent millions on further exam marking fees.

Not a very pleasant story - and all because of simple addition errors.

Are Markers Under Pressure? 

Again, we will stick to UK examples so as not to pick on any South African examination bodies, but there is one school of thought that suggests that markers are required to work at a completely unsustainable rate. In some cases, they are required to read eight papers in an hour which is not realistic.

Given this, it is not surprising that people employed by examination boards make mistakes. It sounds as though it is almost as stressful as it is for the student taking the exam.

This is surely not an adequate time to determine whether or not exam candidates deserve their grades. It also does not give them any time to revise their own mistakes.

Unfortunately, teachers and examiners are notoriously badly paid and overworked and this needs to be taken into account.

At any point during your examination preparation, feel free to check out our article on the funniest exam mistakes (they are real), for some light-hearted comic relief.

What to Do if You Spot a Mistake in Your Exam 

Mistakes in exam papers are inevitable, yet rare.

However, what do you do if you spot an obvious mistake during a real exam?

Firstly, the most important thing you can do is absolutely nothing. If you are in a written exam, you should simply keep going. If it contains multiple-choice questions, you can still make sense of it, keep going. At this point, there is nothing to be gained from upsetting the whole exam hall. Nail the exam and then think about how to approach your teacher later.

In most cases, you should be able to take the exam question paper with you – even though you cannot take away your answers. Double-check with the examiner in the room, or the invigilator whether this is possible or not, as you will want to hang onto the evidence.

Take it to your teacher and if they agree, there is a good chance they will take it further on your behalf. Sometimes, when we are in stressful situations it is easy to see mistakes that don’t exist. However, if they do happen to agree, you or the teacher can get in touch with the exam board who should take responsibility.

Bear in mind that depending on the type of error, there are worse-case scenarios where the exam needs to be rewritten.