UCL accidentally used old Moodle questions for this year’s exam

On Thursday 5th May, final year Spanish students sat a language exam in which two of the three sections had already been made available online to students. An email sent out on Friday to affected students acknowledged the error saying that, “The wrong version of the exam was printed”.

Part of the exam involved a translation into Spanish, which had already been made available to students through the library’s exam papers meaning many students had already seen and practiced the translation as part of their revision, despite the expectation of facing an ‘unseen’ translation in the exam.

UCL have admitted the error was on their part

The translation into English had been posted on the Spanish Moodle course as a tool for exam preparation along with a mark scheme and model answer. A precautionary note warned that the model answer “does not mirror the theme of the text you’ll face in the exam”.

Rhys, a final year Spanish student who sat the paper said that: “Albeit normal to have translations in exams that are similar to what you’ve done before, finding literally identical texts is utterly bizarre.”

Part of the translation that came up in the exam- with a model answer attached

Another student who sat the paper relayed:

“When I opened the paper and looked through it, I couldn’t believe that they were the same texts as I had practiced for revision purposes, and I thought it must have been a mistake. I even looked around in confusion thinking I’d been given the wrong exam paper. Regardless, I completed the paper and left the exam hall early, having remembered the model translation almost word for word.”

To the delight of many students, the email sent by UCL has acknowledged that “this error is likely to increase the number of high marks.”

Despite the acknowledgment of the mistake, no formal apology has yet been made to the students.