Full list of exams affected by VCAA cover note leak revealed days out from results day

More leaks in the VCE exam debacle have been uncovered, with only nine of the 74 commonly sat exams not impacted by the ordeal.

Another three subjects have been impacted by the VCAA VCE exam cover note bungle, with a computer program unveiling even more leaks.

The VCE exam leak fiasco has affected a total of 65 exams, Education Minister Ben Carroll confirmed on Tuesday.

This means that only nine of the 74 commonly sat exams are not impacted.

Mr Carroll said further analysis had uncovered an additional nine exams that were affected by material on their cover sheets: Australian History, Chemistry, Chinese Language, Culture and Society, General Maths 1 and 2, Latin, Physics, Philosophy and Visual Communications and Design.

The announcement comes just two days before ATAR results are released to students.

The impact to the additional exams was foreshadowed by the Herald Sun on Tuesday.

Addressing the media with acting CEO of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, Dr Marcia Devlin, Mr Carroll said no leaks had occurred, insisting that it was a “processing error” which he admitted should not have occurred.

“We brought in the mathematicians, we brought in the chemistry experts. These examinations were written really well,” Mr Carroll said.

Just nine of the 74 commonly sat exams are not impacted. Picture: file image

“What has let us down, the final hurdle, has been a publishing error. Now I want to get to the bottom of that, how it occurred, to make sure it never happens again.”

An independent third party forensic digital security company was brought in to review all replica cover sheets, which led to the extra nine exams being affected by the bungle.

Mr Carroll said that of the 65 affected exams, 25 had sufficient changes made to the questions, or had material available that did not advantage students.

Overall, he said that in the remaining 40 examinations, the VCAA had identified anomalous results for 69 students across five exams, out of more than 304,000 total examinations.

An anomalous result is a result that deviates from a student’s standard result.

Dr Devlin said the five subjects where anomalous student results were found were Business Management, Legal Studies, Product Design and Technologies, Philosophy and Visual Communication.

None of these students were clustered by school or any other relationship that could be determined, suggesting that there was no co-ordinated behaviour to access examination material.

A total 65 VCE exams have been impacted by the leaking fiasco. Picture: file image

To avoid any consequent disadvantage for other students, the panel recommended that those 69 students were removed from the standard study score calculation, including the distribution of study scores.

The scores of the 69 students were then inserted into the overall distribution at a matched point, after the study scores had been distributed.

In no cases have students had marks deducted from their examination results, he and Dr Devlin said.

The 69 students at the centre of the exam leak debacle will not be notified that they had anomalous results, Dr Devlin confirmed on Monday.

The VCAA and Education Minister said they had no knowledge as to whether the students had accessed the leaks, so they would not lose marks as a result of their anomalous marks.

Schools are bracing themselves for a deluge of score reviews once students receive their marks on Thursday

Dr Devlin said the VCAA “had a long way to go to rebuild the trust of students”.

Full list of 65 impacted subjects:

List of affected exams grows

The list of affected exams has grown, with new leaks found in two of Victoria’s biggest exams sat by more than 30,000 students.

The Herald Sun earlier revealed leaks found on exam instruction sheets in both General Maths papers published by the exam authority have been accessed by students using LibreOffice, a popular free software program.

In both cases, the leaks appeared word-for-word on the final exams.

General Maths, which used to be known as Further Maths, was sat by 33,000 students this year, making it the most popular subject after English, which was sat by 45,000 students.

New leaks in General Maths exposed for the first time.

The General Maths 1 leak is exactly the same as the exam.

In the first General Maths exam, sat on Friday November 1, the leaked question was the first on the paper and asked students to name their favourite colour and assess the answers on a bar chart.

In the second General Maths exam, sat on Monday November 4, the leaked question was about Olympic high jump times.

A new leaked question was found for Outdoor and Environmental Studies.

The LibreOffice leaks also uncovered leaked material in Latin.

On the compromised Latin cover sheet, students were asked to translate a lengthy passage, which appeared word-for-word in the actual exam.

New leaks on the PE cover sheet.

New leaks on the Latin cover sheet – a subject not on the government's list of 56 affected subjects.

Using LibreOffice, an additional leaked question was found in Specialist Maths 1 which appeared on the actual exam and Specialist Maths 2, but it does not appear on the final exam.

Other leaks unearthed for the first time publicly were in Music Composition, involving an 18-mark question about a piece of music called On the Boom, two multiple choice questions in Physical Education and a 15-mark case study in Outdoor and Environmental Studies about indigenous connection to the land. The Herald Sun can confirm that the PE questions are both in the actual exam but it’s not known yet about the Music Composition and Outdoor Environment questions.

Students and teachers have been sharing news of the leak, with one divulging the software hack on a maths blog.

“Some of these files, when opened in LibreOffice (or probably word, haven’t tried) had the questions first page of the exam or a draft version of them,” they wrote.

The Herald Sun was alerted to it by a student, who said they’d heard about it back in October.

It comes as the Herald Sun also revealed over the weekend opening the cover sheets using Adobe software uncovered new images and questions in Psychology, VET Integrated Technologies and VET Information and Communications Technology.

A new leaked question was found on General Maths 2

The General Maths 2 leak is exactly the same as the actual exam

One year 12 co-ordinator called the new leaks “another kick in the teeth” for struggling students.

“It’s a hell of a mess,” he said.

While he said some private schools had sufficient staff to help students access their exam papers and marking booklets over the coming week, there were many state schools where “kids will just have to cop it”.

“They work really hard and bust their guts and now they have all of this to contend with as well.”

A new questions was also found for Specialist Maths 1

A new question was also found for Specialist Maths 2

The VCAA and Department of Education declined an invitation to comment on the new leaks.

Shadow Education spokeswoman Jess Wilson said it was “simply shocking” that further exam errors were being uncovered just days before final grades were set to be released.

“After first learning of compromised exams two months ago, the Allan Labor government has abjectly failed to fix, or even get to the bottom of, this mess,” she said.

“What faith can students, teachers and families have in the integrity of VCE assessments when those in charge don’t even know the true depth of this debacle?

“Only an Ombudsman investigation will get to the bottom of what has gone wrong, why and restore community confidence in the VCE.”