Department of Education admits there were two errors in the second general maths exam

Year 12 students sitting their general math exam have spoken of their frustrations over two errors in the paper, after one educator said the test was “written by the devil”.

Two errors in the second general maths exam frustrated students on Monday, with only one picked up by officials beforehand.

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority will now conduct an investigation and ensure no students are unfairly impacted by the exam’s mistakes.

They have also apologised for the “undue stress” caused.

The exam, which left many students in tears, was described by one educator as “written by the devil”.

Meanwhile, other students who encountered the errors have taken their frustrations online.

One student said the matrix mistake – which involved two 1s being placed in a graphic – had cost him more than five minutes during the exam.

“So that’s why I was questioning myself for over 5m during that exam, it was a mistake >:(“ he wrote in one forum.

Another said: “It’s amazing how they have so many people on the panel for one single exam and have published them months before the exam is due yet make errors like this. like bro ur literally vcaa not tssm” ☠️ (TSSM is a revision company.)

Another said: “They’ve been doing it for years, especially for maths subjects. It is completely incomprehensible to me how with at a minimum 4 people who are “experienced” in the examination’s area including the Examination Panel Chair, Examination Panel Member, Study Specialist Reviewer Examination Sitter reviewer are incompetent enough to repeatedly miss mistakes such as the one on the further exams where they said there is a 200% chance that a circus moves to a different town!!!!”

One of the typos in the second general maths exam.

Other students argued that the errors were “very much solvable”.

“Whilst they made the news, one error was a simple grammatical error which didn’t effect the question in any form. The second error did not effect the answer much, if people had understanding of the content covered in the question they could have seen the error and moved past it. I admit it could have confused some people but beyond that no stupid errors vcaa made impacted the answers to questions,” they said.

A further student said the matrix question “was misleading because it implied that a circus was going to travel to two different locations at once but the previous question clarified which location was actually next in the sequence so you could just ignore the incorrect “1” and moved on”.

One student said their teacher told them the question is likely to be taken off the exam, so it will be marked out of 59.

This has not been confirmed by the VCAA or the Department of Education.

Education minister Ben Carroll on Tuesday he had spoken with the chief of the VCAA and ordered an immediate investigation.

“We know how stressful doing any exam is for Year 12s and the Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority, and myself as minister, unreservedly apologize to the students and their families,” he said.

“It is unacceptable, given the checking in the vetting process, that there were two errors on the exam.

“I want to reassure students and their families, that they will not be impacted by this error that had no fault of their own, and it will have no bearing on their marks…we’ll…get to the bottom of how this occurred.”

Education Minister Ben Carroll has ordered an immediate investigation into the errors. Picture: NCA NewsWire

The latest bungle comes after the Herald Sun revealed seven weeks ago year that VCE maths exams have been riddled with errors for 20 years, robbing students of scholarships and high marks.

These included four errors in the 2022 specialist maths exam, a leading teacher, John Kermond, claimed.

This year in general maths paper two the first typo was in question 14 and involved the preamble to part d.

A line mistakenly read: “the maximum decrease in time of any of activity is two days”.

The error was picked up before the exam started so students were advised to cross out the second “of” in the sentence.

However, the confusing layout of the question led to further head-scratching as the preamble appeared to be part of part c but was in fact the introduction to part d.

The second error, which was not picked up before the exam, was another typo in a matrix- related question.

It’s understood this related to numbers in the columns of the communication matrix.

A spokesman for the Department of Education admitted the two errors.

“The first of these was known prior to the commencement and students were instructed to make the necessary amendment prior to starting the exam,” he said.

“The second typo was identified in a matrix-related question. The VCAA will conduct further analysis to investigate how this error appeared in the exam, and will ensure that no student’s score is unfairly impacted because of this mistake, and apologises for undue stress this has caused.”

Many students were left frustrated by Monday’s second general maths exam.

One maths insider said: “So we know VCAA are capable of admitting mistakes. To an extent”.

MaffsGuru said in an online post the exam “was much harder than Friday’s paper. I think Question 13 was written by the Devil himself. Other parts were just time-consuming. It was different from other years. Not helped by the mistake in the Matrix question!”.

Students posted about the “brutal” exam, with one student saying that “as we left our examination hall, people discussed answers and so many people started tearing up”.

Another said: “Gen Exam 2 finishes, I turn around and the girl behind me is staring into the distant nothingness, soul has left her body and all that was remains was her body on that chair.”

Another said the question on seasonality had “weird wording” and that the exam had a “ridiculous amount of trick questions”.

One summed up the feelings of many students: “It was written so poorly it wasn’t even funny”.

It’s the start of a big week for many VCE students, who will sit economics on Tuesday and business management on Wednesday.

Education minister Ben Carroll on Tuesday he had spoken with the chief of the VCAA and ordered an immediate investigation.

“We know how stressful doing any exam is for Year 12s and the Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority, and myself as minister, unreservedly apologize to the students and their families,” he said.

“It is unacceptable, given the checking in the vetting process, that there were two errors on the exam.

“I want to reassure students and their families, that they will not be impacted by this error that had no fault of their own, and it will have no bearing on their marks…we’ll…get to the bottom of how this occurred.”