AN ERROR IN the Irish-language version of a Leaving Cert Higher Level Maths exam meant that part of a question worth a total of 50 marks made no sense.

Question 8 (b) in Higher Level Maths Paper II on Monday mistakenly used both an Irish-language and English-language version of a mathematical formula, resulting in the question making no sense.   

Only students doing the exam through Irish were affected by this mistake. 

In English, students were asked to use a calculation of fuel consumption(F) and speed (S) to explain how the two factors relate.

The question called for students to write about the calculation “rFS”, however the Irish version of the question also referred to “rFS” despite the fact that fuel and speed begin are “breosla” and “luas” in Irish.

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Niall Mac Uidhilin, whose daughter discovered the error, and Eoghan Ó Ceallaigh, Principal of Coláiste na Coiribe in Galway, discussed the matter on Iris Aniar on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta yesterday.  

Niall Mac Uidhilin said that the second section of the question left his daughter bewildered, but that she thought that the fault lay with her own lack of understanding.  

“She said that there was something in the question that made no sense to her.  She had to give up on it, but she thought it was her own fault that she couldn’t understand it.” 

“She had already done two pages of work on the question, so she had wasted a certain amount of time, and then she had to go and find another question to answer instead … She thought there was something she hadn’t seen or understood, that she was the problem.” 

Mac Uidhilin said he went searching for any media coverage of the error but found none.

“It’s important to highlight it, who knows, there must be other students who have been affected who don’t know that it was an error in the translation, and that they were not to blame.” 

The SEC has issued a statement acknowledging that the error “may have been a cause of confusion for candidates”.

“The SEC has procedures in place to enhance reliability and to minimise error in advance of papers going to press. Despite these procedures, it is an unfortunate fact that errors can and do occur on examination papers from time to time.”

“The SEC operates within the core principle that candidates cannot be disadvantaged as a result of an error on an examination paper.”

Eoghan Ó Ceallaigh, Principal of Coláiste na Coiribe in Galway, told  Iris Aniar that not many people had come to him about the error.  

“It was clear there was a mistake between the English and Irish versions.  Most students probably didn’t understand that it was a mistake.  There are likely lots of students who did the exam who don’t know.  You would have to compare the English and Irish versions of the papers to understand the question.” 

“We were in touch with them [the SEC] yesterday.  They are usually good in cases like this, they know that things like this happen.  They’ll have to discuss the implications of this mistake now for the marking system.”

“The main thing for me now is that there is equality for all students, and the SEC now has to look at that and come up with a marking scheme that makes sure it’s fair for all the students who sat the paper through Irish.” 

The SEC stated that it would use its guidelines ‘How the SEC Deals with Error in Examination Papers’ to determine how to address the specific nature of the issue.

The document advises SEC officials that “care must also be taken to ensure that the marking strategies adopted for dealing with error do not inadvertently unfairly advantage any candidates.”

This may mean that any changes to the marking scheme will have to apply to students who attempted the question in its entirety and also students who may have skipped part b.

The SEC said 25,867 candidates registered to sit Higher Level Mathematics of which 2,057 entered to sit the paper through Irish.