Botched exam: emergency resit on Saturday
Dozens of third and final year Maths and Computing students have been forced to sit a rescheduled exam on Saturday due to a printing error. As the students looked over the original exam paper last Thursday, several noticed that both pages were identical. The exam paper had two sets of the same three questions, whereas there should have been three on one page and two on the other.
The students were informed that the Geometry of Surfaces exam was cancelled and they would all have to go home and await instructions. Subsequently, all students received an email asking them when they would be available to re-run the exam. As this is the exam period and students have many other commitments, the only time all the students were available was Saturday afternoon.
Emily Lines, one of the affected students, told Felix: "This is totally unacceptable, how can a simple error like this happen at Imperial which is supposed to be a top-flight University. This won't only negatively affect my performance in this exam but also my other exams as my revision timetable is now all over the place."
Felix contacted Dr Frank Berkshire, the Director of Undergraduate Studies for Applied Mathematics, to ask if the department believed that students would be significantly disadvantaged by the mistake. He replied: "It is difficult to see how candidate performance would be adversely affected at least on this exam".
The students will sit a completely revised paper on Saturday that has been hastily prepared by the department and is currently being approved by an external examiner.
Dr Berkshire confirmed to us that "the facts of the case will be brought to the attention of the exam board and any disruption caused to students will be taken into account when decisions are made about [the grades]".
The students have demanded to know exactly how this incident occurred. On this point, Dr Berkshire only stated that it was "an error which had not been thought possible". A full report on the incident is currently being written.
Some students believe that the exam could have continued on Thursday and was cancelled with undue haste. They suggest that if the correct version of the paper was `in the system' it could have been printed and the exam could have continued with only a minor delay. Dr Berkshire told us that although the paper was in the system, "it was not obviously and instantly [available]".
When Felix informed Sameena Misbahuddin, Union President, of the blunder, she said, "Honestly, don't they check the paper over first? It is very important".
Rupert Neate, Editor
Felix's View
This simple clerical error could have major implications for the students sitting this exam. The blunder will not only affect their performance in this exam, but will also have a knock-on effect on other exams to be taken next week.
Many of the affected students also have an exam the following Monday and had planned to spend this weekend intensively revising. Now they will miss at least one day's revision.
These are important exams that are worth one eighth of the year. A poor performance could lead to students finishing with a lower standard of degree.
College have launched official investigations into both of these incidents. These are of great interest to the student body and must be made available for public scrutiny.
