We understand how stressful this time of year is for our senior secondary students and sincerely apologise for the errors that were in some written exam papers this year.

We can reassure students and schools that TASC is ensuring that no student’s results are negatively impacted by the errors.

How errors were addressed in exam marking

The possible direct and indirect impacts of the errors were addressed with course-specific approaches, including marking methods and results integrity measures to evaluate and address any exam performance impacts.

This process included:

  • Checking each student’s exam responses carefully and working with schools and exam centres to understand how students were affected by errors and what instructions they received during the exam.
  • Adapting the marking based on how students responded to the questions with errors. For example:
    • Removing the affected question completely, or
    • Awarding marks for a variety of responses, depending on how each student understood and answered the question.
  • Managed approaches to address specific situations, taking into account exams, comparisons to internal school ratings and patterns from previous years.

There was a thorough review of the exam results for affected courses to see if the errors affected students’ overall performance. This included Assessment Panel teams using:

  • internal vs external rating difference reports to compare internal and external ratings in the exam to see if there were any significant differences from what’s typical for students in recent years.
  • anomalous results reports to identify students with unusual/inconsistent result patterns and reviewing their exams to ensure their performance was assessed fairly, including adjusting exam criterion ratings as appropriate.

Information about how errors were managed

The errors were in the supporting material (stimulus material) in the exam paper, the instructions about working time or were typographical within an exam question. The nature and potential impact differed between exams.

It is inaccurate that:

  • errors affected large parts of an exam
  • exam questions weren’t in the course curriculum
  • AI was used to write exam papers.

Generally, it is not expected that the errors would have prevented a student from providing an appropriate response to the affected question. However, we recognise that students should be able to quickly and easily understand an exam question.

The affected questions were generally 2 to 3 marks out of the 180 marks available. This is generally a few minutes of working time across the three-hour exam.

Wherever possible, students were advised of an error in the exam paper prior to the commencement of the exam. For those identified during an exam, where time permitted, students were notified of the error and specific steps they should take.

A planned process is carefully followed when a student raises a possible error, including confirming with the Exam Setter if there is an error and sending notifications to ensure all students sitting the exam receive the same information at the same time.

The student information about preparing for the exams, such as How to answer exam questions and understand exam marking, advises students how to respond if they think there is an error in an exam. This includes alerting the Exam Supervisor and moving on to the next question. If the exam is finishing soon, students are advised to attempt to answer the question, providing information in their answer that explains how they have interpreted the question and justifying their approach.

What checks are done on exam papers

Every step is taken to prevent exam errors, and it has been rare for an error to occur in a final exam paper. In the unfortunate instance that an error occurs in an exam paper, despite the rigorous checks that are put in place, TASC uses robust marking and discrepancy processes to guarantee that no student is disadvantaged.

TASC has a comprehensive and multi-layered approach to ensure the accuracy of exam papers. This includes:

  • employing an Exam Setter for each course that is a current or former senior secondary teacher with a deep and broad knowledge of course content (generally five or more years teaching in that topic area).
  • employing a team of Exam Critics with demonstrated high-level knowledge and extensive experience teaching the subject area to review the exam paper and provide the solutions to questions for marking purposes.
  • TASC staff conducting final checks and quality control of the final paper.

Following the exam marking, TASC will work with all those involved in the exam development process to see at what stage the errors occurred and what further checks could be put in place to prevent similar types of errors in the future. We are committed to undertaking a formal review of processes to ensure the ongoing accuracy of the examination period in Tasmanian senior secondary education.

TASC deeply regrets the errors in exam papers and will do our utmost to ensure this does not occur again.

Questions

If you have any questions that are not answered here, please email us at enquiries@tasc.tas.gov.au. Your school’s TASC Liaison Officer (TLO) can help you to understand the information and support you in contacting TASC on your behalf if you have any other questions.

We will keep the information on this page updated. Current as at 12 December 2024.