Civil war in Business School over bad exam results

Horrified business students have turned on their own lecturers in a row over low exam scores.

Economics, Business, Accountancy and Finance blame poor teaching and badly worded question papers for unexpected poor performance in their January exams.

Nearly half the students who sat the test scored results in the 40s, and some were as low as 10%.

The dreaded exam paper.

The results have left many outraged at the quality of the department’s teaching.

Some students formed a Facebook group, with over 200 members signing a petition in protest of the “poorly worded” exam which caused so many to do worse than expected.

The group are also filing complaints over the department’s poor teaching quality, with one lecturer in particular singled out. The Tab has chosen not to name lecturer.

Ramin, a second year who studies Business and Economics, said: “Even if they picked a random guy from the street and asked him to teach his subject, he would have done a better job than this guy.

“Maybe is time for the University of Exeter to focus more on the ‘teaching ability’ of its lecturers rather than ‘research background’ only.”

Moreover, the academic has been accused of having “little economics experience”.

Students allege comments he’s made while teaching include “I hope you understand this because I don’t.”

The ‘Oh shit’ moment when you realise you’ve been taught nothing for this exam.

SSLC student representative Charlie Evans said: “We have not seen an exam scandal as big as this for years. The Business School must launch an immediate investigation into this as thousands of students’ degree classifications are on the line.

“If the exams are deemed unfair a reallocation of marks is an absolutely appropriate and necessary course of action to take.”

Following the SSLC meeting, which was held to deal with these complaints with Carlos Cortinhas, the Program Director for Economics, Charlie wrote on Facebook: “In true Carlos style, he presented us with a histogram with the mean mark at 52%. Although lower than the typical mean score, it isn’t unusual.

“An external examiner will be looking at the paper in May and if the examiner finds it to be unfair, inconsistent with the course objectives then there maybe some form of a re-mark. However, Carlos was quite clear and felt that this is unlikely.

“It was concluded that the exam wasn’t very representative of what we studied in class in terms of proportionality.

Third year Economist Alice Tapper, who set up the Facebook petition group, said: “It is unacceptable that students should have to face the consequences of the Business School’s failures once again. The module was run poorly, we were misinformed as to the exam content and the questions were misleading.