The AQA exam board has admitted to making a mistake with a question in an exam paper which some students said was ‘impossible to answer’.
Pupils from about 1,200 schools and colleges across the UK were left scratching their heads after a typo in their physics A-level exam led to them complaining.
An unfortunate student who sat the exam, Jack Leyland, described the error as “annoying” because it was “in a paper that already had awkward twists on usually familiar questions.”
A spokesman for the AQA tried to clear up the confusion post-exam and said: “We meant to ask students to compare a 150 kN(c) resistor – not a 150 N(c) resistor as it said in the paper – to a 300 kN(c) resistor.
Students tweet to celebrate 'easy' test
Students launch petition to stop uni displaying end-of-year exam results
Hundreds arrested following Indian exam cheating scandal
“At this stage, it looks as though most students haven’t been affected by this, but we’re letting our examiners know and will make sure it doesn’t affect students’ grades.”
Although the AQA said the question could still be answered – despite the way it was worded, some students on Twitter begged to differ last night as the hashtag #AQAPhysics began to trend:
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies