A year 12 geography exam paper question has left students and teachers stumped in the national examinations.
And it has irritated parents as the million kina question was itself worth 35 points, or half of the point from the paper. It was cast to the students on Tuesday morning, and left more than 30,000 students across the country scratching their heads as they tried to figure out how the question corresponded to the map that had been provided.
And the marks that was missed is worth 35 marks with frustrated parents asking how the questions had not been checked before the entire paper was printed.
Education Minister Jimmy Uguro said he had not been briefed on the incident.
The Post Courier understands that question 1 to 10 were worth 10 marks. However, the wrong topographic map was used.
And from questions 31 to 33 worth 15 marks, there was no topographic map of Buka and for Question 40, the map was without a scale.
Parents and students contacted Post Courier early Wednesday morning saying that when their children got home after the exams said that the invigilators had to stop the exam for a few minutes as they tried to figure out the issue with the question.
Shirley Kori Lung from Lae said that her son along with his classmates were asked to disregard the respective questions.
Ms Lung said that her son has raised concerns when he returned home because they had to stop the exams to check the question and the map.
This is unheard of especially during the examinations in the country that will see our children selected to attend tertiary education.
There should be a thorough check on the examination paper before final printing.
Ms Lung
Another mother, Linda Passingan said,
I was alerted by my daughter on the incident and was not happy when she told me what happened.
What the department should have done was employ trusted people from outside of that office to do quality checks before examination papers are sent out to the schools.
Another parent said her child said the question was on a map, however, the map on the question was not part of the question, instead a different map had been put alongside the question.
My son did not know how to work out the answer and ended up asking questions which in turn got the invigilator to stop the examination while they looked at the question.
From what my son told me, the invigilator told the students to skip the question and answer the rest of the questions.
However, the question is worth 35 points, and the students are asking will they be marked.
Concerned parent
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