Victorian students reveal embarrassing error in 2023 General Achievement Test

A compulsory exam undertaken by the state’s 50,000 VCE students, which was described as “surprisingly difficult”, contained an awkward error.

A word was misspelt in the General Achievement Test Picture: AFP

The 2023 General Achievement Test, a compulsory exam sat by the state’s 50,000 VCE students on Thursday, contained an embarrassing typographical error.

The test, which was dubbed “surprisingly difficult” by students in one online forum, had one word misspelt in the Section B paper sat by students in the afternoon.

Instead of the word “brushing”, the paper contained the word “bushing”. The mistake was made on 25, question 37.

One student who sat the test explained the way the error in the test — designed to test the reading comprehension and vocabulary of the state’s year 12 students for moderating purposes — was communicated at her school.

“Halfway through the reading time a lady came into the room and said, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt everyone but there’s an amendment you’ll have to make to your exam’.”

“Everyone had to pick up a pen and cross out bushing and write brushing. Then we had to put our pens down and go back to reading time.”

The student summed up the views of many by saying: “A document given to 50,000 year 12s which is written by 100 people should at least be proof-read properly.”

In 2021, multiple choice questions about social media, a Monet’s painting and a man seated at a desk divided students sitting the General Achievement Test.

Many were worried because there didn’t appear to be one correct answer but a range of answers that could be right depending on their perspective.The most contentious was a cartoon of a young woman sitting in a park on a bench wearing a T-shirt that reads: “Ask me about my break from social media”. The options are that the person A: feels liberated, B: is embarrassed, C: seeks acknowledgment or D: is enjoying their solitude. In 2020 one student who sat the GAT said there were a few “weird questions”. “There was one about surf wax, one about pH solutions, plastic cogs you could spin — it was a little bit weird,” the 17-year-old said. “I thought it would be similar to NAPLAN but it was really abstract.”