VCE exam question blunder prompts order for full review

ABC NEWS (Australia)

After two years of VCE exam bungles, the authority overseeing the process has delivered yet another. Thousands of students were mistakenly given access to questions before sitting their exams.

Transcript

00:00It's a tense time for VCE students midway through their exams, but a new error by the

00:08state's exam board is adding to the anxiety.

00:11There's obviously no way to tell who really studied and who didn't and who cheated.

00:15Example exam papers containing hidden information were published online, giving students a preview

00:21of what was to come in the real thing.

00:24The case study was leaked and it was exactly the same word for word except for the name,

00:29which means they were able to infer what questions were going to be on the exam based

00:33off of that.

00:34The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority published redacted sample papers on its website.

00:40But if the text was copied and pasted into another document, blanked out material could

00:44be made visible, revealing questions nearly identical to those in the actual exams.

00:50Hasn't happened for all subjects, but it's happened to probably at least 20 or 30 subjects

00:55and as a result students, the word quickly spread that there were leaked questions from

01:02the exams.

01:03There has been human error here, it's still not acceptable, human error.

01:07The Minister ordered leaked questions be rewritten for remaining exams, but the Curriculum Authority

01:13maintains the exams weren't compromised.

01:16This year's exams are similar to previous year's exams in format and content.

01:22This is because they are based on the VCE study designs, which remain the same for many years.

01:29Students have been told there'll be no penalties for accessing the information.

01:33It's a bit disheartening to know that they're not really going to do anything about it.

01:37The latest bungle follows mistakes written into Victorian exam papers over the past two years.

01:42What we need now and what we need urgently done is for a complete independent review

01:48of the VCEAA itself and the systemic review of the exam process.

01:52There are just four more days until exams finish, then it's the process that will be put to the test.

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