Long list of blunders
This is the latest in a long list of blunders by the Examinations and Assessments Authority.
The authority confirmed earlier this week that six answer papers were misplaced during the marking of this year's HKCEE test. The authority has lost 79 answer papers since 1999, a record criticised by the Ombudsman last year.
The Ombudsman launched an investigation into the authority in 2001 because of errors in two exam papers. The HKCEE Chinese history paper included a multiple-choice question for which there was no correct answer, and a typing error in the pure mathematics A-level posed an unsolvable problem.
The same year, a senior official came under fire for issuing instructions in English to exam supervisors containing a grammatical mistake. More than 50 students lodged complaints in 2000 when the Use of English A-level listening exam, broadcast on RTHK, was hampered by poor reception and interruption.
An authority officer was convicted in 1997 for secretly copying answer sheets and giving them to his son.
In 1996, Ho Tim, one of the authority's senior advisers, was forced to quit as associate professor at City University when nearly 600 students wrote an identical essay in a Chinese language exam. The essay had been memorised from a book written by Dr Ho and provided to students by a tutorial school where he worked part time.
