Bucks 11+ exam fiasco: How authorities will make it right

GL Assesments have issued a grovelling apology to parents and children after children taking their 11+ exams were asked to answer 'impossible' questions.

Some schools were informed about the errors in the examination paper prior to the examination taking place, and were therefore warned.

However some schools were not.

This has left unanswered questions about how GL assessments will make the 11+ exam results 'fair'.

Some children will have spent more time on attempting the 'unanswerable' questions, which means they may have not completed the test in time.

There were further concerns that children may have become 'unsettled' by being unable to answer the two questions, affecting their performance on the rest of the test.

GL Assessments have conducted an independent review into their failings in an attempt to ensure that marking is fair.

In a letter seen by the Bucks Herald sent to parents, their report concluded that:

1. All children will be awarded a mark for each of the two erroneous questions, thereby ensuring no advantage or disadvantage from these two questions

2. In order to ensure no individual child is penalised for not being able to complete the test, the last six questions of the Verbal Reasoning section will not count towards the final mark.

In the 11+ examination on Thursday 12 September, there were issues with two questions and a practice question in the Verbal Skills paper:

• For question 10 of the Verbal Reasoning section of the paper, the correct answer could be found on the answer sheet, however three of the other answer options did notmatch the options on the question paper

• For question 13 in the same section, the answer could not be found on the answer sheet

• A practice question in the English section could also be answered, however one of the five responses on the answer sheet did not match the answers on the question paper.

The mistakes slipped through GL Assesment's internal processes.

They said: "While a correct answer sheet had been produced and verified by TBGS, a failure in our final quality assurance process meant that a previous answer sheet was used in its place. This resulted in the errors outlined above."

They added: "The overall reliability of the test has not been compromised"

Alastair Durno Head of Admissions Testing, GL Assessment said: "I would like to apologise once again for any distress this situation has caused your child and your family, as well as thank you for your patience as we have conducted our analysis and reached this solution.