Exam board is fined £175,000 for impossible question that mixed up the families of Romeo and Juliet and left students baffled

Read Time:2 Minute, 50 Second

#MTNshortz3sixtyworld

Exam board is fined £175,000 for impossible question that mixed up the families of Romeo and Juliet and left students baffled

An exam board has been fined for giving GCSE students an unanswerable question about the most famous play in the world.

OCR has been fined £175,000 after it asked thousands of teenagers taking their English Literature GCSE ‘How does Shakespeare present the ways in which Tybalt’s hatred of the Capulets influences the outcome of the play?’

The question confuses the two Verona families that are central to the play.

Claire Danes ans Leonardo DiCarprio star as the eponymous characters in Baz Luhrman's 1996 film — Claire Danes ans Leonardo DiCarprio star as the eponymous characters in Baz Luhrman’s 1996 film

Tybalt, is Juliet’s cousin and a Capulet, meaning the question should have referred to his hatred of the Montagues.

The question is one of two that students could choose to answer as part of the paper.

In total 14,261 students sat the exam paper and of these around 5,000 students answered questions on the play.

Student Sophie Elder, 16, from Derbyshire, told the BBC’s education website: ‘I got to the question, I read it, and read it again and thought that doesn’t make sense. It’s so distracting.’

Brighton College headteacher Richard Cairns, headmaster of Brighton College said at the time it is ‘hugely important’ that OCR reassure pupils immediately that they will not be disadvantaged.

‘It beggars belief that these things are not checked properly,’ he said.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: ‘Candidates have every right to expect that awarding bodies complete a full check on exam papers to ensure that they don’t experience such problems.

Candidates sitting the OCR exam were asked about the way William Shakespeare presents Tybalt's (centre) hatred of the Capulets - but the character is Juliet's cousin and a Capulet himself — Candidates sitting the OCR exam were asked about the way William Shakespeare presents Tybalt’s (centre) hatred of the Capulets – but the character is Juliet’s cousin and a Capulet himself

‘Similarly, schools and colleges have to pay thousands of pounds a year to examination boards and are entitled to better quality assurance than this.

‘This appears to be a serious error and it will have caused stress and concern to candidates.

‘Students need to be able to perform to the best of their ability and seeing errors in a paper can undermine their confidence.

‘We call on the awarding body to take appropriate action to make sure that candidates are not in any way disadvantaged.’

In total 14,261 students sat the exam paper and of these around 5,000 students answered questions on the play

Exam regulator Ofqual has now announced it intends to impose a hefty financial penalty of £175,000 on the board, saying the paper was ‘not fit for purpose’.

An OCR spokeswoman apologised to students, teachers and parents again, adding that it has revised its check system with the aim of ‘improving the quality of our question papers’.

Due to the mistake, 2,735 candidates had been awarded a result which had been calculated based on their performance in other GCSE English literature questions.

An OCR spokeswoman said: ‘We would like to apologise again to students, teachers and parents for the error last year which led to regulatory action. We want to reduce the chance of errors like this happening in the future.

‘We have revised our system of checks, based on extensive research, with the aim of improving the quality of our question papers.’