Students in a Chinese-medium school who did not do well in the Certificate of Education Examination partly blamed the new syllabus.
This year's English-language examination was the first after the more difficult Syllabus B was merged with the easier Syllabus A.
There is no official failing grade, but no mark is awarded to Level 1, while Level 5* scores 5 marks, Level 5 gets 4 and so on.
Wong Sai-wa, 16, who studies at Kowloon Tong School (Secondary Section), scored 18 marks out of a possible 30, but received only a Level 1 in English. 'I'm very disappointed,' he said. 'If I had been born a year earlier I would have done a lot better.'
Sai-wa said his chances of doing better would have increased had he taken the easier Syllabus A exam.
He said he would have been able to work on past papers. Sai-wa studied papers from the past 20 years for subjects in which he did well, such as economics and maths.
