Missing materials and scheduling slip-ups: Students faced exam chaos at these three unis

Exams are fundamentally terrifying. But exams are even scarier if the papers have mistakes in. Or the room wasn’t booked for long enough. Or everyone else is having panic attacks. Students’ exams have been particularly messy in 2025 at these three unis – and two are Russell Group. Here’s a look at the worst uni exam messes students have dealt with in 2025.

University of Bath

First year physics students were supposed to do a three hour long exam on 27th May. But the department accidentally put the wrong length onto the timetable. The invigilators handed out the papers, and students realised they only had two hours to do a three hour exam. Invigilators couldn’t just give the students another hour, because the room was booked for something else afterwards.

The uni is really not as pretty as the rest of Bath

The head of the physics department, Professor Ventsislav Valev, told the BBC: “We are deeply sorry for the confusion and concern this has caused. Our priority is to ensure that no student is disadvantaged. We are reviewing our processes to ensure such an error does not occur again.”

Final year computer science students at Bath claim to have found 11 mistakes in one of their exam papers. 34 students sent a letter to the uni to complain. A student told Somerset Live: “It’s just a mess.

“Domestic students are paying £9,250 a year for this degree… Just from a business transaction standpoint, people aren’t happy.”

Durham University

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Students at Durham claim they spotted errors in history, maths and computer science exams. People sitting the Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics 2 engineering exam had a particularly tough time. And not just because ‘Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics’ sounds like hell.

According to Palatinate, students need a data table to answer most of the questions on the exam. But these booklets weren’t handed out before the exam. So students had to spend three-quarters of the exam on the only two questions that didn’t need this booklet. By the time everyone received the data table, they had half an hour left.

Durham University (or one of the colleges, anyway)

The Chair of the Board of Examiners emailed the students afterwards: “We acknowledge that this caused a serious disruption and may have impacted your ability to perform to your full potential.” Er, you think?

A spokesperson for Durham University told Palatinate: “The University has over 48,000 exam sittings during the May/June examination period. While the vast majority of these sittings run smoothly, if any issues do arise we have procedures in place to minimise the disruption caused to our students, and to ensure this does not impact on outcomes.”

University of Nottingham

Notts students claim the final year Advanced Industrial Economics exam contained mistakes. The wording of one of the compulsory questions really confused people. Apparently this was so distressing some students cried, walked out and even had panic attacks. Some students are worried they will now fail their degrees. Approximately 100 Notts students have signed an open letter about this issue.

The University of Nottingham has been contacted for comment.

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Featured image of the University of Nottingham by Greentreepencil.