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Physics teachers - please complain to OCR

7 replies

Crossyr13mum · 09/06/2025 12:24

DS has just come out of A Level Physics OCR Paper II and said that once again the exam paper contained errors in the questions. This time, however, a table was not included in the list of amendments, so the charge on the capacitor was wrong with incorrect values.

It’s bad enough that all these kids are under enough stress to meet their grades for their uni offers. It’s bad enough that they have worked so hard for so long just for some exam board not to proof read their examination papers before they’re sent out to schools.

Please contact OCR and perhaps even consider other exam boards next cohort. There’s nothing I can do. I’m just a complaining parent whose individual email will be worthless.

DS worked out the table errors and answered the question. His friend was thrown by the errors in the table. So how does this work? If it’s a nationwide problem is the question discounted? But what about those students who worked out what the values should actually have been and managed to answer the question? Do they get any extra credit? But then that penalises other students through no fault of their own. As you can tell, I am very angry. I have watched DS work so hard over the past two years and now his future is in the hands of an exam board that repeatedly makes errors year after year after year on their exam papers.

OP posts:
JamesWebbSpaceTelescope · 09/06/2025 21:32

Exam officers are aware and OCR has been contacted by many schools. It is being looked at.

Crossyr13mum · 09/06/2025 22:40

Thanks for your reply. What will the outcome be, do you think?

OP posts:
JamesWebbSpaceTelescope · 10/06/2025 07:15

There will be a review about how many marks in the question were affected by the errors and it could be those bits are removed from the totals or the students automatically get full marks, or the error is considered not significant enough and nothing happens. No one can say at this stage.

Crossyr13mum · 10/06/2025 08:04

As a teacher, would you give extra credit to a candidate who had worked out the cause of the error, solved the error and then went in to answer the question correctly?

OP posts:
Crossyr13mum · 10/06/2025 08:05

But the heart of my original post is why would a school trust an exam board that repeatedly screws up year after year?

OP posts:
CeciliaMars · 10/06/2025 16:38

Crossyr13mum · 10/06/2025 08:04

As a teacher, would you give extra credit to a candidate who had worked out the cause of the error, solved the error and then went in to answer the question correctly?

I would give them praise and a special mention in class, but I don't think actual extra points outside the mark scheme could be awarded as the children weren't asked to do that. I can understand why you are so frustrated though - it's awful.

JamesWebbSpaceTelescope · 10/06/2025 17:35

As a teacher I have no say about how the exam board apply the grades but there usually aren’t extra marks available.

This is a bad year but usually OCR is pretty good as exam board go. AQA on the other hand…

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