ELAT 2023 for 2024 entry

Sleep came up as the theme for me too! I’ve just emailed the university admissions team to ask if there was an accidental repeat from last year, because I really shoe-horned ‘sleep’ into my answer. I think ‘the moon’ might have been the intended theme? I’ll let you know as soon as they email back!

Sleep came up as the theme for me too! I’ve just emailed the university admissions team to ask if there was an accidental repeat from last year, because I really shoe-horned ‘sleep’ into my answer. I think ‘the moon’ might have been the intended theme? I’ll let you know as soon as they email back!

This is what they’ve replied to me:


“Sincere apologies for the confusion and any disruption caused by this. There was an error in the test, it should've said 'moon' instead of 'sleep.' Candidates will not be penalised for this as it is an error on this side.”

So it was moon!! Argh!

This is what they’ve replied to me:


“Sincere apologies for the confusion and any disruption caused by this. There was an error in the test, it should've said 'moon' instead of 'sleep.' Candidates will not be penalised for this as it is an error on this side.”

So it was moon!! Argh!

Hi guys, gonna sound stupid, but was the question the same as the 2022 question (sleep)? I felt like the extracts weren’t as strongly linked as they have been in previous years and they’ve never repeated the question again…I know there’s been a lot of glitches with the systems and wanted to see if anyone got a different question?

i hope they take into account how stressful this all was when they mark it. how did this even happen ?

Exactly - did they not even read through and check? Obviously they must have copied last year's paper when setting up the texts and added the new texts but forgotten to change the theme, but surely at least 1 person looked over the text beforehand to check it!?!?

What texts did you guys choose in the end? I picked a/f.

This is what they’ve replied to me:


“Sincere apologies for the confusion and any disruption caused by this. There was an error in the test, it should've said 'moon' instead of 'sleep.' Candidates will not be penalised for this as it is an error on this side.”

So it was moon!! Argh!

Hi how did you contact oxford? what email address did you use?

This was my thought exactly! I assumed the theme was the ‘Moon’ instead of sleep, as all the extracts had that as a linking theme, and most of them had no relation to sleep.

guys i think we have to use our common sense here, it was clearly meant to be a linking theme of the moon.

Most likely they will take into account anyone who spoke about sleep instead, as well as anyone who did just the moon. I guess the safest are the many people who I'm sure did both, linking the moon and sleep. Either way, i'm sure we'll all be fine so long as the writing was still okay?

personally, I just wrote about the moon and didn't mention sleep because the texts I liked really had basically nothing to do with sleep.

This happened to me too, and ended up telling the exam invigilator about this issue. I'm so glad that this has been a universal experience! I ended up ignoring the question immediately and assumed that the theme was 'The Moon' and continued the essay as given.

I wonder if those who went ahead with the theme of sleep will be penalised for not executing a close reading? I hope everyone will be okay though.

Well they have stated no student will be at a disadvantage because it’s their error. You can’t penalise students for not executing a close reading in the question they made a mistake on. How is one meant to assume there was an error? It’s all down to assumption. They could of in fact chose to keep the theme as sleep and others got it wrong by thinking it was the moon. How would you know and most people wouldn’t assume oxford would of made such a cockup like this. Who knows how they will mark this, it may have less weight this year and more emphasis put on other aspects we don’t know. Lets just hope the admissions process is done fairly.

Well they have stated no student will be at a disadvantage because it’s their error. You can’t penalise students for not executing a close reading in the question they made a mistake on. How is one meant to assume there was an error? It’s all down to assumption. They could of in fact chose to keep the theme as sleep and others got it wrong by thinking it was the moon. How would you know and most people wouldn’t assume oxford would of made such a cockup like this. Who knows how they will mark this, it may have less weight this year and more emphasis put on other aspects we don’t know. Lets just hope the admissions process is done fairly.