A serious mix-up may or may not have caused some pretty damaging results for over 70 students here who recently completed their O-level math paper.
Although they thought the worst of their troubles was over last Thursday (it’s a national math exam, after all), 24 students from Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School and 49 students from Woodgrove Secondary School are now probably worried sick about messing up — and it’s not even their fault.
The 73 Secondary 5 students were supposed to sit for a math paper from the old syllabus, The Straits Times reports. Instead, they took an O-level math paper from the revised syllabus that had a couple of questions the students weren’t even familiar with.
Fortunately, no other schools were affected in the blunder, according to the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB). Apparently, both schools indicated the wrong syllabus code during the registration process earlier this year.
Once the mix-up was realised, the schools informed SEAB, and the students took the second part of their math paper the following day under the correct syllabus.
As for the first paper, it’s too late to change anything. SEAB assures that they’re arranging for the affected candidates to be “fairly assessed”, and will take into consideration the results of the students’ second math paper and the cohort’s performance.
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