FOR the Use of English exam this year, one of the instructions candidates received was ''Answers should be written in the appropriate spaces in the question/answer book.'' This instruction implies that answers ought not to be written outside the allocated spaces.
This fact and the practice of previous years where markers neglected answers on the supplementary sheets, led many candidates to attempt their very best to condense their answer scripts to fit into the spaces given in the question/answer book.
This means that if the space was inadequate (which was the case in Task 2 for a lot of candidates), content marks would be lost.
However, this year the Hong Kong Examinations Authority (HKEA) has decided to mark answers outside the given spaces, however this was not made clear to the candidates before they took the exam.
Subsequently, it would be unfair for those candidates who were unaware of such a change.
Could the HKEA clarify and comment on this issue? NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED