Exam papers get an 'F'

ELAINE POON has been angry and upset since discovering the Examinations Authority made a mistake in this year's advanced-level, or A-level, examination in pure mathematics - a mistake she says could keep her from securing a university place this autumn.

In one calculus question, (6 - x) was typed as (x - 6), making the problem impossible to solve. Ms Poon, who declines to give her full Chinese name for fear of being identified by exam officials, says this flawed question forced her to waste time during the April 20 exam and may have caused her to fail.

'I am confident I would have passed if the question had been properly presented, as I have reviewed more than 10 years' worth of previous exams,' the 20-year-old says. 'After taking the exam and learning about the error on television, I was so upset that I collapsed and could not concentrate on studying for the physics exam two days later.'

Faced with a dilemma, the Examinations Authority considered whether to throw out the entire pool of A-level pure-maths results and require the 9,200 candidates who took the exam to take another one, or whether to retain the results but allow candidates to volunteer for a second exam, or simply to adjust candidates' scores for the flawed exam. In the end, officials opted for this last path, adjusting scores on the portion of the exam - Paper 2, Section B - in which the error appeared.

But Ms Poon and many of her classmates at a secondary school in Shamshuipo are not satisfied. She argues that a voluntary additional exam would be the fairest way to solve the problem. 'Candidates should be given one more chance,' she says.

The implications of the error for individual candidates are immense. A-level exams are normally taken when students are in Form Seven, the final two years of secondary school, and are the main factor used in allocating university places. Because the exams are extremely important - and difficult - candidates often take them several times. That means candidates who have previously taken the pure-maths exam could see their grade drop, thanks to the Examination Authority's blunder.