The OCR D1 debacle - what went wrong?

Ofqual have now published their interim report into the causes of the infamous impossible D1 question. For January 2012 a second subject specialist who has had no involvement with the production of the paper will sit it as well as the scrutineer.

OCR GCE Decision Mathematics – 4736

An error occurred in Question 6 (ii). The question was worth eight marks out of a total of 72 marks for the paper. 6,473 candidates were entered, of which 2,938 were due to complete A level.

Candidates were asked to prove two expressions. However, these expressions were incorrect so were impossible to prove.

The error was introduced following the revision of the paper in light of comments made by the reviser who felt the question as drafted was too demanding. The error was introduced from the mark scheme when the question was changed from a “find” question (where the distances had to be calculated) to a “show” question (where candidates had to show how distances were derived).

The error was present in the version of the paper which was considered by the QPEC meeting but was not picked up or queried by any of the senior examiners present. A scrutineer worked a typeset version the paper and provided a report to the chief examiner as required by the Code of Practice. The scrutineer‟s report showed workings which matched those of the mark scheme. As the workings matched the mark scheme the scrutineer did not identify that both their workings and the mark scheme contained the same error.

In all fairness OCR are not that bad a exam bored for maths. Plenty of revision material is available. All in all, mistakes happen

True. I think the worst exam board for Maths, at least at AS/A level, is Edexcel. Insufficient amount of exam revision material available, and I dislike the layout of their exams.

True. I think the worst exam board for Maths, at least at AS/A level, is Edexcel. Insufficient amount of exam revision material available, and I dislike the layout of their exams.