Students frustrated after Glasgow Uni law school uploads identical previous exam paper

The error was the second the law school have made concerning this exam

9 months ago

Students were left fuming after Glasgow University law school uploaded a previous paper to the rescheduled exam.

This rescheduled first year exam took place in the August exam diet due to a “previous clerical error” where an answer sheet was uploaded alongside the original exam in December 2022. As a result, the university offered students the option to resit the criminal law and evidence exam in August 2023 without any repercussions.

The resit exam was scheduled to take place on the 14th of August, but when students logged onto Moodle, they found that the December paper had been uploaded again. The date and time were correct, but the paper was identical to the one that had been given to them last year.

Students had taken to the Moodle forum attached to the exam to complain about the error, but it took over an hour for an administrator to respond and tell them to stop the exam. By that time, many students were already working on the paper.

One student, Hannah*, told The Tab how she had studied all summer and “basically wasted an hour and ten minutes” due to the lack of communication following the mistake.

Whilst this mistake will not impact students’ existing grades, this paper was rescheduled to allow students the chance to improve. The university, after an hour and ten minutes, communicated that students should not take the exam and staff were holding an emergency meeting to discuss the matter, and an update would be provided as soon as possible.

Hannah* said: “I feel pretty let down by the lack of monitoring of the exam. If there’s an issue with an exam when it’s released, I would expect it to be fixed quickly. Considering people pay fees for this course (and they’re trying to increase these fees), I think it’s extremely disgraceful on behalf of the law school.”

In an email to students that evening, the staff confirmed that the new examination date would be the 17th of August at 2pm, calling the situation a “problem” and apologising that this was an “error compounded by the previous clerical error”.

Whilst a resit date is what students were asking for, some were concerned that they would not be able to attend or further study due to work or other commitments.

“At the moment I’m feeling extremely frustrated as this is the second time the law school have messed up the same exam. I spent a lot of my summer studying and worrying about this exam with the assumption that it would be over today. I also work full time and have volunteering commitments so I have had to take unpaid and paid days off work for essentially a massive waste of time,” said Hannah*.

The email from the law school apologised for any “clashes with exams outside of the School of Law,” but it makes no mention of any job or other obligations that students may have had on the 14th as a result of the last-minute rescheduling.