Guidance provided to pupils sitting their GCSE Biology exams this week has caused confusion and left a number of students “in tears”.
The advice provided by AQA, the country’s largest exam board, gave students an idea of what would be and what wouldn’t be assessed in line for government advice this year. But some have now claimed the wrong information was given for each of the biology papers (a single biology exam and two combined papers).
One pupil, Ree, tweeted: “Are you gonna give us a reasoning as to why the exam aids for the exam were not accurate at all. We were told cancer and antibiotics weren’t going to be on there but they were. And they were worth more marks on than the required practical which was a major focus please explain.”
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Another pupil said they hadn’t prepared the topic of cancer as they were wrongly told there weren’t going to be any questions on it. The person wrote: “Tell us there will be no questions on cancer to have to answer questions on cancer #shocking.”
Others have accused AQA of “ruining” pupils’ future. Twitter user Andy Duff said: “Could someone find out why @AQA set out guidelines for Monday’s GCSE biology paper and then got pupils to sit one unrelated to what they said. Leaving many in tears and potentially ruining their future after they already suffered the worst education in history.”
However, others said the information provided was correct. Cath Williams wrote: “I’m a science teacher and the Advanced Information for the 4 different papers was accurate as far as I can see analyzing the papers. I teach 4 different Yr 11 groups that cover the 4 papers and they were all different in content so had to follow the advanced information carefully.”
In response to the complaints, AQA, which denied the guidance was inaccurate, said that it looked like students “might have been using the advance information for a different biology paper from the one they sat”.
Anyone who faced similar issues, is advised to speak to their school about it.
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