Can you imagine the distress that the students must have felt when they discovered the novel they prepared for wasn’t actually covered in the exam? What do they do? Try and write about novels they haven’t read? Can you imagine the teacher’s embarrassment when he/she was informed of the huge error?
SHOCKED students from a private school in Melbourne’s southeast were unable to complete a VCE exam because they had been taught the wrong text.
Authorities have launched an investigation after eight pupils from Lighthouse Christian College in Keysborough spent a year studying a novel not on the prescribed reading list.
The error was discovered last Thursday afternoon – when the year 12 students could not find Julia Leigh’s The Hunter on their literature exam paper.
The VCE English exam is a 3-hr exam. Unlike all other subjects, it is not an elective. Every Year 12 student in the State sits for it. To study a text, night and day, only to find out during the exam that it wasn’t on the prescribed reading list would have been an earth shattering revelation for the students involved. If it was me, I would have panicked. It would have ruined the whole exam for me.
Mistakes happen, but this was a big one!
Topical Teaching 