‘Nonsensical’ VCE exams bring students to tears

VCE exams have reduced students to tears and sparked complaints of “nonsensical” questions and the inclusion of material they hadn’t been taught.

VCE exams have brought students to tears due to baffling questions, new formats and the inclusion of material they haven’t been taught.

Year 12 students and parents – already wearied by months of remote learning – have labelled exams in psychology, maths methods and business management as “nonsensical”, “infuriating” and “university level”.

Elle Angelopoulos, 18, from McKinnon Secondary College, said the psychology exam multiple choice section was particularly challenging.

“We also didn’t expect a full ten-marker (essay) on research methods which threw a lot of people,” she said.

Another year 12 student who didn’t want to be named called the psych exam a “curveball we weren’t anticipating. They cut the curriculum and we didn’t know what is in or out”.

Another said the psychology exam questions were “phrased very poorly” and said his teacher called it “university level”.

One Loreto year 12 student said the maths methods exams made some students cry.

“A lot of kids walked out crying from the maths methods exam one as it was completely different from every other exam they’ve been doing – they changed the formatting and pushed the limits,” she said.

“And in the second methods exam there were questions asked from the information that was taken out of the curriculum,” she said.

“Teachers were telling us they didn’t know exactly what we would and would not be tested on,” she said.

The parent of another year 12 student at a northern state school said the business management exam was “nonsensical”.

“Every kid in that exam went through hell – even those who studied,” she said.

Peter Saffin, CEO of the Mathematical Association of Victoria, said the “moderation of marks will help even-out the results anyway”.

He said some students could have been taught the content remotely “but did not get the depth of usual learning to deal with the more challenging questions”.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said “the study designs were amended to reduce content of Unit 4 and the exams only test the skills and knowledge from the amended study design”.

“The exam results are determined by ranking students and, in combination with statistical moderation, produce fair and valid results for all students sitting the examination,” he said.

The last exam is December 1 and results will be available from 7am, December 30.

Special consideration will be given to all students, with a greater reliance on moderation by teachers due to remote learning as a result of the COVID pandemic.

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