Scottish exam authority admits 'typographical and coding errors' in computer science test
GCSE-equivalent paper contained "a number" of badly-worded questions as well as wrong information
The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) has admitted to a "number of typographical and coding errors" in National 5 level computer science exam paper - equivalent to an English GCSE.
An investigation into the May 2016 exam paper found "problems with the reference language" in questions posed to students, and that "grade boundary adjustments" had to be made in order to mark the paper to a fair standard.
One question, says the report on the investigation, "contained several typos".
"Spaces should have been between the commas and the values", says the report, but even "these edits would still generate a problem" with a subsequent question.
A further question had an incorrectly stated weight as an example, which "should have been 0.65kg".
"However this did not affect candidate performance", the report suggests. There were also "inconsistences in units in the diagrams".
Five questions apparently contained a "term [that] has not been assessed in previous examinations".
One question found by students to be "challenging" covered information system design and development, with structures and links and relative addressing. It was found that "candidates were stronger with their knowledge of absolute addressing" in the 2015 exam.
Overall, almost 33 per cent of students who took the paper achieved an A grade, with 27 per cent achieving a B, 23 per cent a C and nearly 8 per cent being awarded a D.
However, almost 10 per cent of those who sat the paper - 778 students out of 7,927 examined - failed.
One fear of educators when the decision was made to scrap ICT examinations back in November 2015 was that teaching computer science at GCSE may introduce a steep learning curve for both educators and examiners.
One UK IT teacher tweeted about the decision by the then Education Minister Michael Gove: