Confusion as SACE notifies schools of error midway through Chemistry exam

Students had to pause their exam this morning while invigilators explained the error. See the question.

Students have had their final chemistry exam disrupted after they had to be notified of an error in the test paper on Wednesday morning.

SACE sent emails out to schools at 10.03am to notify students, who were midway through the chemistry test, that an error was discovered.

The exam began at 9am.

Schools were forced to pause the 130-minute test, which was about halfway through, to notify students of the error and changes to question 7a in booklet two of the exam.

The timer was restarted following the correction.

Pulteney Grammar School year 12 student Oscar Mitchell said the exam flaw didn’t impact him too much although it did cause him to lose his “train of thought” in relation to a question he was working on.

Still smiling are Pulteney year 12 chemistry students, James Bradley, Mackenzie Weaver, Oscar Mitchell, Sarah Ninio and Emerson McClurg after their exam with a flawed question. Picture: Matt Loxton

“That glitch was for one of the last questions, so it wasn’t overly disruptive,” the aspiring astronaut, 18, said.

“I was in the middle of writing (another) question ... so it was somewhat disruptive in that sense … I lost my train of thought, which probably cost me a couple of minutes, but we were given those back at the end of the exam.”

He said overall the exam was a little easier than he had expected.

Classmate James Bradley, who is considering physiotherapy or optometry, agreed the exam interruption wasn’t too stressful.

“It was a bit confusing at first as I wasn’t sure what had happened … not shocked but a bit surprised,” he said.

“(Our teacher) just came in, stopped the timer and said ‘change these two words’, so that was fine.”

Head of science Nadia Maglica says she has every confidence in the exam performance of her school’s 24 final-year chemistry students, glitch or no glitch.

“I have zero of a shadow of a doubt – they are so capable ... (they) are prepared so well that I know these students are going to maximise their potential in their exams; they just love the ability to be challenged in their thinking,” she said.

An email from SACE, addressing the flaw to school principals and co-ordinators, explained that the question asked students to determine the minimum result in a calculation, where it should have read “maximum”.

The exam was paused while students were notified of the error. Picture: Brett Hartwig

The question was written as follows:

In Australia, the minimum acceptable concentration of PFOA in drinking water is 560 ng L-1.

One groundwater sample recorded a PFOA concentration of 45 ppb.

Calculate the concentration of this PFOA sample in ng L-1 and hence, determine whether it is under the minimum acceptable concentration for drinking water.

The email told staff to advise students of the change and apologised for the error.

“We apologise for the disruption and thank you for your patience and understanding,” the email read.

The question is worth two marks.

A SACE spokeswoman said “the editorial error did not impact students’ ability to answer the question”.

“The SACE Board wishes to reassure students that calculations using the minimum or the maximum result will be accepted in the marking process,” the spokeswoman said.

“Schools with students enrolled in chemistry were immediately advised of the error during the exam.

“Processes are in place to ensure that no student is disadvantaged by the error.

“The SACE Board apologises to students for the error and have SACE team members available to answer any questions they may have.”

Originally published as Confusion as SACE notifies schools of error midway through Chemistry exam