UPDATE: ‘Free marks’ for students affected by exam cockup

The University Business School has given away marks to students left dissatisfied by a ‘badly worded’ Economics Exam.

The school’s Director of Studies, Carlos Cortinhas sent out an email to more than a hundred Economics students admitting that the BEE2024 Economics Principles and Policy exam they had sat in January included "a number of multiple choice questions that either had no solution, were ambiguous, or contained inaccuracies."

As compensation, the email explained that all candidates would be given full marks for the six questions "identified as problematic" and a further 10 percent bonus was then applied to each student’s final mark "to take into account time lost due to the errors and ensuing communication to and from the lecturer." Mr Cortinhas went on to add that he felt the solution was "quite generous" and accepted that it was an extreme case’.

Students sitting the module left the exam hall in January feeling frustrated and concerned that their results would be affected by the cockup. Whilst some chose to complain through official channels by contacting the Business School and their academic student representatives, others chose to vent their frustration through a Facebook group.

Many students were satisfied with the Business school’s solution with one second year Economics and Politics student telling the Drop that it was his "best exam result by far."

However some students still feel that there are issues to be addressed. Tom Cooke, a second year Economics student who created the Facebook group in protest at the errors admitted the "solution was better than anticipated" but also felt that it "avoided the real issue".

Tom told The Drop "The Business School informed me that the exam had gone through a four-stage vetting procedure before we sat it. It is worrying that the errors managed to slip through and it isn’t the first time that this has happened – there were three faults in one of the exam’s from last year. We’re paying over £3,000 a year for this degree and future students will be paying triple that. We sit the exams but the outcome of our degree isn’t always in our hands which is scary."

Others agreed with Tom, with a second year studying Economics, Politics and Philosophy saying that she felt that "people are distracted by the thought of effectively 28% extra marks and aren’t thinking about the fact that the Business School has made yet another mistake."

In the email, Mr Cortinhas assured students that the Business School would "do its utmost" to make sure it didn’t happen again.

Exam results were sent out earlier this week.