“It might have included some of the prompt material, or it could have included one or two questions, but those questions and those prompt materials may be similar, but they’re not the same as to what’s in exams.”
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White said the VCAA had examined the production issue and reflected on what went wrong to ensure it would not happen again.
“I think exams have been prepared with extensive quality assurance, and that our students can be reassured that … their exams have not been impacted,” she said.
Cover pages are routinely made available to the public by the VCAA in the lead-up to exams. The documents are intended to indicate the structure, number of questions and length of time to complete the assessment – but not the content.
The Age has seen cover sheets for at least 22 subjects that allow viewers to reveal previously invisible text.
Subjects including Psychology, Australian Politics, Business Management and Systems Engineering all appear to be affected by the error.
The gaffe also impacted the cover sheet for the English examination, the subject with the highest number of enrolments. More than 40,000 students sat the English exam on October 29.
The hidden text described a scenario involving “two neighbouring suburban sports clubs” facing “declining membership and player numbers due to decreasing population in the area”.
A different example ended up being used in the exam.
The erroneous cover pages can still be accessed through digital archival tools.
In 2023, some general and specialist mathematics students were awarded bonus points due to errors in the exams. A number of exams also had confusing typos, and six students were given the wrong Chinese language test.
At the time, Education Minister Ben Carroll pledged to leave “no stone unturned” to ensure the 2024 VCE exams go through a “rigorous process” before reaching students’ desks.
Carroll has been contacted for comment.
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