Copy, paste: What we know about the VCE exam fiasco

Thousands of VCE students could have taken their exams with a hidden advantage over their peers, after some questions were accidentally revealed online in advance.

Authorities are yet to say how many subjects were affected by the major blunder, which gave some students early access to questions.

Here’s what we know so far:

What happened?

Official exam questions were inadvertently uploaded to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) website in a major error that has embarrassed the exam authority and angered the state government.

It has also left students worried they may have been disadvantaged and had their ATARs compromised because of other students seeing the exam in advance.

The blunder allowed students to access the material by selecting seemingly blank sections of the so-called cover pages – revealing the presence of “hidden” text. This could then be copied and pasted into a new document to reveal the words.

Some students downloaded the material before it was removed from the VCAA website. Others were able to access the material using a popular internet archive tool.

VCAA chef executive Kylie White said a production issue led to some sample material being included in the sample cover sheets. The questions were removed when the mistake was discovered.

White said the material did not appear on the exams after the error was discovered in October – but conceded that some exams contained “similar” material to the cover pages.

Cover sheets are intended to indicate the structure, number of questions and length of time to complete the assessment – but not the content.

Which subjects are affected?

The Age has seen cover sheets for at least 22 subjects that contain invisible text, including psychology, Australian politics, business management and systems engineering.

The error also affected the cover sheet for the English examination – the subject with the highest number of enrolments at more than 40,000 students. A different prompt was ultimately used in the exam on October 29.

What does it mean for students’ results?

Education Minister Ben Carroll has reassured students that they will not be penalised. Addressing VCE students on Thursday, he promised to get to the bottom of the bungle.

It follows problems with last year’s VCE exams, when errors in general and specialist mathematics exams resulted in some students being awarded bonus points. A number of exams last year also had confusing typos, and six students were given the wrong Chinese language test.

VCE results will be announced on Thursday, December 12.

What about the students who are still sitting exams?

News of the exam bungle broke on the day of the physics, geography, Greek and philosophy exams.

Exams yet to take place include Monday’s Australian history exam and Tuesday’s foundation mathematics exam. The last exams finish at 5.15pm on Wednesday, November 20.

The VCAA said questions were removed as soon as the mistake was discovered.

What are authorities doing about it?

Carroll, who said he found out about the problem a fortnight ago, met Education Department secretary Jenny Atta on Thursday morning.

He also met White and said he “asked some hard questions” during their meeting, but did not elaborate.

Carroll said he had ordered the VCAA to rewrite all the exam questions to ensure no students had an advantage over others.

The VCAA says it has examined the production issue to ensure the mistake does not occur again, but it has not provided any detail on how the error occurred or what would be done to prevent it happening again.

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