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By LAURA BROOKES
I
t was the news that left Botany Downs Secondary College students reeling with frustration: NZQA’s latest round of mistakes made across all levels of this year’s examinations. On November 24, Year 12 student Kimberley Jayapalen sat the Level Two calculus and Level Two probability papers, only to receive a text from her tuition centre later that day, asking whether she had seen the reports about errors in examination papers. “I thought maybe it was the algebra exam because that’s the one I found difficult, but it turned out to be the two exams I thought I was doing okay in...I was completely freaked out about it, so
I checked online. It’s a national embarrassment,” she says. Year 12 student Idreis Abdo sat the same papers, and with future plans to study software engineering at university, the 17-year-old said he was very frustrated at the extra pressure put on students as a result of the mistakes. In addition to the Level Two papers, there have also been mistakes in an NCEA scholarship statistics exam, a Level One maths exam and a Level Three statistics exam. BDSC head of mathematics Irene Bennet hopes NZQA will make a strong effort to ensure no student is disadvantaged by discrepancies in exam papers. Mrs Bennet, who has been teaching at the college for nearly 10 years, was attending a course
offsite on the day of the Level Three statistics exam. When she returned to school, she was approached by distressed students who told her one of the questions kept coming up negative, so Mrs Bennet went into the classroom and asked the examiner if she could see the paper. “I looked at it and I thought – don’t tell me they made an error. “Some of my students were quite upset so I tried to reassure them, but unfortunately a couple of good students said they spent huge time on the question and in the end were too distressed to attempt the question.” Mrs Bennet still has faith in the NCEA system, but acknowledges there needs to be more of an effort made to avoid mistakes like this
from happening again for the sake of the students. “Even in our department, I always emphasise the importance of double checking tests and examination papers, and doing the papers ourselves to make sure they are error free. “It’s not fair to stress the students out during an exam. Sitting the exam is stressful enough for the students.” NZQA deputy chief executive Kristine Kilkelly apologised for the Level Three statistics exam error in a November 25 media release and said discrepancies in other papers were not expected to have affected students’ ability to answer the questions. NZQA is currently investigating how the errors occurred.
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