Investigation reveals exams already sat in three subjects – Business Management, Specialist Maths and Legal Studies – have been compromised

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has admitted to a catastrophic blunder that has raised concerns over the integrity of the exam process.

Thousands of VCE students have been given access to cheat sheets containing ­almost identical questions and case studies to those in their final exams, in a catastrophic blunder by bureaucrats.

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has admitted to the bungle after a Herald Sun investigation found that exams already sat in three subjects – Business Management, Specialist Maths and Legal Studies – have been compromised.

Students can also find ­potential cheat sheets for a further five exams still to be held, and sat by nearly 10,000 students.

One furious college principal, who asked not to be named, described the bungle as “mind-blowing”, saying the “integrity of the exam process is now in doubt”.

The cheat prompts were accidentally included in the VCAA instruction booklets for each exam, called “cover sheets”.

The authority discovered the issue in mid-October, after being alerted that students had been sharing online how they were able to highlight blank spaces on pages of booklets, which when pasted into a Word document ­revealed “hidden” questions and case studies.

In one chat on the web forum Reddit, a resourceful student noted that “just for fun I tried highlighting the word ‘sample’ but I ended up highlighting words that weren’t there. So I copied and pasted them and there were essay prompts that I had never seen before”.

The VCAA then issued new instruction booklets, without the questions.

The authority also changed the Revolutions exam that the student was referring to, so it did not contain the material discovered in the instruction booklet.

But students were still able to track down compromised versions of other booklets by putting their URLs into the Wayback Machine search engine.

The Herald Sun has uncovered questions and case studies which could be included in exams for 22 subjects.

It is not known at this stage how much of that material is similar to the questions on the actual exams.

In the Specialist Maths exam, which was sat by around 3500 students on Monday, VCE teacher John Kermond said: “Parts (a) and (b) of the alleged leaked Specialist Maths Exam 1 question had identical structure and marks to parts (a) and (b) of the actual exam”.

“The rule for the function in the actual exam was different, but similar enough so that both parts offered the same solution pathway.

“A student having prior knowledge that a question of this type was on the exam would obviously be advantaged over a student who did not know,” he said.

The cheat prompts were accidentally included in the VCAA instruction booklets for each exam, called ‘cover sheets’.

In the compromised Business Management booklet, a case study in section B – worth 25 marks out of 75 which is a third of the exam’s total marks – was used in the final test on November 6.

The case studies were both about a business attempting to maintain a positive reputation despite getting three bad reviews. The reviews and context were also exactly the same, aside from the CEO and company names.

In Legal Studies, both the instruction booklet and the real exam case studies were about “contempt of court for carrying out research” while on jury duty.

While the real exam question had slightly more context than the uncovered material, the only difference between the two was the name of the man facing the charges.

Even the convictions for “Luke” and “Leo” were the same – a fine of 120 penalty points.

Business Management, Specialist Maths and Legal Studies were sat by a total of 28,000 students.

In Australian Politics, the material was reworded but the topics and questions were identical.

Several more questions and case studies have been uncovered in five subjects where the exams are yet to be held: Global Politics, Systems Engineering, Food Studies, Art Making and Exhibiting, VET Integrated Technologies.

Year 12 students discuss the leaked exam questions on social media platform Reddit.

The VCAA on Wednesday admitted that sample material was inadvertently included in booklets on its website, which were replaced.

The authority insisted it had then ensured the questions in exams were different to the sample material.

But many teachers said the changes were so minimal that they were pointless.

One senior VCE teacher in a leadership role in a major government school told the Herald Sun: “If a school did this they would fail a VCE audit and be told to change their practices.

“Students who have bent over backwards to do their best now find their peers may have had access to substantial material in the final exam. It is mind-blowing – how is this even possible?”

Another VCE teacher in a government school said the VCAA “should be held to account and must ensure students are not worse off”.

“They did it and then they covered it up. The only changes they made were to the names in the case studies which gave the kids who saw this a massive advantage,” he said.

Opposition Education spokeswoman Jess Wilson said: “Labor’s gross incompetence has once again left students disadvantaged and compromised the integrity of VCE examinations.

“For students, VCE is stressful enough without concerns of exam papers containing errors, being leaked, incorrectly distributed or otherwise compromised.

“The VCAA must be subjected to an urgent, independent investigation to restore confidence in this authority.”

The blunder comes after two years of mistakes in VCE exams set by the VCAA.