Error on Mondays Accounting Paper

Joseph

The commission has issued an alert to exam superintendents about an
editing error in Monday’s Leaving Cert higher accounting exam. The error
will be corrected by supervisors when the papers are distributed.

Source

JoeyBuddy

**** sake. That's all we need now. More precious time taken away from our accounting exam.
Hopefully it's a question I'm not doing, because errors can confuse me.

**Timbuk2**

I wouldn't worry about it. It happens fairly commonly (e.g. French Aural for OL) and usually the mistakes are very small. I think it happened for accounting one year in Q1, in the bank recon adjustment, when whoever wrote the paper accidentally added the cheque not presented instead of subtracting it in order to arrive at the figure 'on the bank statement'.

sarahisdeadly

It could just be something small though.

I mean in pass biology there was an announcement made about an "is" put in for "are" or something like that.

Captain-America

Nothing is small when the rest of your life may depend on it.

**Timbuk2**

Captain-America wrote: »

Nothing is small when the rest of your life may depend on it.

If the paper was significantly wrong, it would be changed. If there is an error, which there may not be (just because the Irish Times says that it has information on unreleased exams doesn't make it true!) it will only be something like 'The figure of 230 dr on page 6 should actually read 320 dr' or similar

tracert

Yep, there was one on Biology OL I think.

"The fourth word in Qx part x Page x should read "cow" instead of "chicken"."

Happens the whole time and they mention it before you start.

Cian92

At least they realised it this time. If you go back to the 08 (I think thats the year) ratio question. The ratios for previous years are completely wrong....
Our accounting teacher said it is a fairly regular occurence on the account paper that there are errors in it, and they aren't even announced as errors. Only realised by teachers afterwards.... like the JC business I suppose.

JellyBeans92

Would the SEC have announced it before the actual exam starts?. i.e. before 2pm on Monday afternoon?

Oh well, maybe they'll mark whatever question it's on easier?

*crosses fingers

pathway33

do the past papers on www.examinations.ie contain the errors or are they rectified before they go online?

kippy

Captain-America wrote: »

Nothing is small when the rest of your life may depend on it.

You should be writing thrillers.........

When you eventually get through the Leaving Cert, ye'll see its NOT the be all and end all.


The errors are usually minor and the supervisor mentions any errors/omissions in the paper before the clock starts - usually take a minute to sort out.......

ale-breno

i was told it's an error in Q8/9. Pretty sure it's 9. And I think something in the Q2/3/4 area also, if my sources are correct:)

JellyBeans92

ale-breno wrote: »

i was told it's an error in Q8/9. Pretty sure it's 9. And I think something in the Q2/3/4 area also, if my sources are correct:)

How would your 'sources' know this exactly.. I thought the paper was unreleased?. =P

EuropeanSon

My sources tell me they've replaced all the questions with published accounts.

Captain-America

kippy wrote: »

You should be writing thrillers.........

I do. I get the ending first, then I work backwards.

JellyBeans92

EuropeanSon wrote: »

My sources tell me they've replaced all the questions with published accounts.

Love it?!

JK.. I don't have a fricking clue of the published accounts!?

Can you imagine though..

Victoria.

Apparently figures were wrong in JC business exam too.

You'd think that they would check the LC papers about 20 times though, we're already stressed enough. We had an error on the history paper too and the superintendent was like ''go to page x and y question is wrong blah blah blah'', after a few attempts to tell him it made no difference because we don't even do that book he read it out anyway (no such question was on the paper) and wasted the first 5 minutes of an exam that is tight for time.

JellyBeans92

Victoria. wrote: »

We had an error on the history paper too and the superintendent was like ''go to page x and y question is wrong blah blah blah'', after a few attempts to tell him it made no difference because we don't even do that book he read it out anyway (no such question was on the paper) and wasted the first 5 minutes of an exam that is tight for time.

Aren't they not supposed to read the error out before the exam starts, so as to not lose time?
That's going to be a kick in the face bc accounting is already tight enough

Victoria.

JellyBeans92 wrote: »

Aren't they not supposed to read the error out before the exam starts, so as to not lose time?
That's going to be a kick in the face bc accounting is already tight enough

Well he insisted on doing it when it had started.
Some of the guys in the class were nearly going to shout stfu you could see it in their faces. History is a nightmare of an exam in the first place too. Maybe ours was just an idiot though.

theowen

**Timbuk2** wrote: »

I wouldn't worry about it. It happens fairly commonly (e.g. French Aural for OL) and usually the mistakes are very small. I think it happened for accounting one year in Q1, in the bank recon adjustment, when whoever wrote the paper accidentally added the cheque not presented instead of subtracting it in order to arrive at the figure 'on the bank statement'.

Hold the phone. I was never told about an error in the French aural??

theowen

Victoria. wrote: »

Apparently figures were wrong in JC business exam too.

You'd think that they would check the LC papers about 20 times though, we're already stressed enough. We had an error on the history paper too and the superintendent was like ''go to page x and y question is wrong blah blah blah'', after a few attempts to tell him it made no difference because we don't even do that book he read it out anyway (no such question was on the paper) and wasted the first 5 minutes of an exam that is tight for time.

I was never told about an error in the history paper either

dee o gee

theowen wrote: »

Hold the phone. I was never told about an error in the French aural??

It was on the OL aural paper, very first Q in section 1. Think the question was 'What sort of shop does oliver want to open to:', the examiner just walked around and told us to cross out the second 'to'.

**Timbuk2**

theowen wrote: »

Hold the phone. I was never told about an error in the French aural??

It was announced on my centre, but for OL people

JellyBeans92

Does anyone know anymore about this supposed error on the Accounting paper?
Is it on the ordinary or the higher?
What question?. etc

What I'm confused about is if there's an error, how come we know about it well before the exam starts?

:?

SantryRed

It's in the booklet the superintendents are sent out.

JellyBeans92

SantryRed wrote: »

It's in the booklet the superintendents are sent out.

Yes.. that's ok.. But how do WE know about it?.

:P

caoimhirino

It was in the Irish Times yesterday... and its higher level that theres the mistake in

Stryderman

Was there an error? we wer never told about one:eek:

mark.oc

Stryderman wrote: »

Was there an error? we wer never told about one:eek:

Only in ordinary level apparently.

markanthonythom

all the HL paper in south dublin wer messed up. they skipped questions 4 - 8. nd only the OL paper had a typo

JellyBeans92

markanthonythom wrote: »

all the HL paper in south dublin wer messed up. they skipped questions 4 - 8. nd only the OL paper had a typo

What do you mean.. The paper was completely missing those questions!?

****, I thought they just changed the format..

JK.. I'm a culchie?! :P


Can't believe I'm finally finished though!?

Dublin4Life

The Accounting paper was so ****ing hard................ L0L jk I went to the IOE

Mad Scone

JellyBeans92 wrote: »

What do you mean.. The paper was completely missing those questions!?

Yeah they just weren't there like... at all... thought it was a joke at the start!! How could this have happened after the mess with last year's English Paper 2... you'd think they'd be more careful!! We all got messy photocopies of those questions... the exam teacher lady was in a mad panic cos the fax machine in the school was broken and they kept emailing it but it was ending up in the spam folder or something... nightmare!!!

JellyBeans92

SantryRed wrote: »

It's in the booklet the superintendents are sent out.

Well at least they were given FULL booklets by the sounds from the South Dublin Centres..

I'm a culchie so LOL

(JK, hope the paper went well for everyone. )

highlydebased

Heard on the radio there a while ago apparently they printed the first 2 or 3 pages over and over or something.

randylonghorn

Victoria. wrote: »

You'd think that they would check the LC papers about 20 times though ...

Neon-Circles wrote: »

Heard on the radio there a while ago apparently they printed the first 2 or 3 pages over and over or something.

Sounds like a glitch during the print run.

In fairness, it's very hard to check for those, unless it affects a lot of papers, in which case it will probably be spotted at some stage.

Short of physically checking every single individual paper sent out in every subject ... what are we talking, circa 400,000 papers?

pathway33

when students got the papers with missing questions these exam papers were taken off them again until the new ones arrived? or were ye left with the first paper to shoot away at question 1? how much time were ye given at the end? after seeing question 1 were ye able to work out stuff in yer head while waiting for the real paper to arrive? or were ye too muddled to do anything?

unknown13

pathway33 wrote: »

when students got the papers with missing questions these exam papers were taken off them again until the new ones arrived? or were ye left with the first paper to shoot away at question 1? how much time were ye given at the end? after seeing question 1 were ye able to work out stuff in yer head while waiting for the real paper to arrive? or were ye too muddled to do anything?

According to my classmates. Half the paper was missing when they first got it. They were eventually given the remainder of the paper 45 mins later and the three hours ( offical exam time) started then.

JellyBeans92

randylonghorn wrote: »

Short of physically checking every single individual paper sent out in every subject ... what are we talking, circa 400,000 papers?

When it comes down to it, why should they check the papers?

I forgot.. it's only peoples grades and potential college places they're messing with?

And even the Irish Times knew about an error at least 2 days ago?
Couldn't they have been making provision to try get more papers printed?

English Paper 2 2009, but on a way small scale? Well they knew about that on Wednesday afternoon/evening and were able to have papers printed and distributed to the WHOLE country by Saturday morning?..

I think it was just the SEC being lax..

pathway33

unknown13 wrote: »

According to my classmates. Half the paper was missing when they first got it. They were eventually given the remainder of the paper 45 mins later and the three hours ( offical exam time) started then.

So they were able to keep the first paper during that 45 minutes period. Were they allowed to write? If they were that means they got 3 hours 45 minutes for the exam. Hardly fair on the rest of the country

unknown13

pathway33 wrote: »

So they were able to keep the first paper during that 45 minutes period. Were they allowed to write? If they were that means they got 3 hours 45 minutes for the exam. Hardly fair on the rest of the country

They were given the same paper but with the questions they didn't receive. they got 3 hours 45 minutes for the exam. TBH, if you were under those conditions and something was wrong that you didn't have control over you would want some sort of benefit. They got that benefit with 45 minutes extra time

Mad Scone

pathway33 wrote: »

when students got the papers with missing questions these exam papers were taken off them again until the new ones arrived? or were ye left with the first paper to shoot away at question 1? how much time were ye given at the end? after seeing question 1 were ye able to work out stuff in yer head while waiting for the real paper to arrive? or were ye too muddled to do anything?

We were told to work on with what we had but some of the other girls were in a right panic so nobody could really concentrate... everyone was just looking around to see if someone was gonna come with more papers cos we weren't even sure if the questions we did have were from the right paper cos of the questions being missing.

Don't think we were given long enough of extra time to be honest... extra half an hour was nothing after only getting the right questions after an hour!

I'm supposed to be celebrating the exams being over but can't stop worrying that the SEC's mess-up might have cost me my precious 600 points!:(

It's all over the radio and all... heard someone from the ISSU saying that the SEC should take it into consideration with the marking scheme so hopefully they'll listen to what the students think! I was just on their website there and some chap commented on the ISSU's article saying it was okay for the SEC to make errors as long as the superintendent read them out and all... easy knowing it hadn't affected him. I totally agree with the ISSU: http://issu.ie/?p=1130

**Timbuk2**

Those schools have nothing really to worry about. Imagine having your Question 1 done with 3 hours left

JellyBeans92

**Timbuk2** wrote: »

Those schools have nothing really to worry about. Imagine having your Question 1 done with 3 hours left

I know like?!

I found it hard to finish the paper in the 3hrs, would've been happy with an extra 5-10 mins..
I know it was a VERY bad error on the SECs account, but in fairness if you can't keep yourself calm an do the Q1, then I don't have much sympathy?

There were lots of shocks for people in this years LC apparently, but you just have to get on with it.. Them's is the breaks.


Anyway, I'd say they'll 'adjust' mark accordingly so no-one will lose out?! Plus, b*tching about it won't help, b/c you've already stuck that seal and handed up the booklet (Unless you're school has a REALLY bad photocopier?! )

wonderfulname

JellyBeans92 wrote: »

When it comes down to it, why should they check the papers?

I forgot.. it's only peoples grades and potential college places they're messing with?

And even the Irish Times knew about an error at least 2 days ago?
Couldn't they have been making provision to try get more papers printed?

English Paper 2 2009, but on a way small scale? Well they knew about that on Wednesday afternoon/evening and were able to have papers printed and distributed to the WHOLE country by Saturday morning?..

I think it was just the SEC being lax..

Something tells me the error predicted was not the missing sheets, the missing sheets were only noticed when the paper was handed out, did the supervisor read a correction out at the beginning of your exam? If so that is actually the error, and its the usual way for them to rectify mistakes.

JellyBeans92

wonderfulname wrote: »

Something tells me the error predicted was not the missing sheets, the missing sheets were only noticed when the paper was handed out, did the supervisor read a correction out at the beginning of your exam? If so that is actually the error, and its the usual way for them to rectify mistakes.

Emails were reportedly sent to the affected school BEFORE the exam started?

I wasn't affected, so honestly I don't care all that much?.
=?

randylonghorn

randylonghorn wrote: »

Sounds like a glitch during the print run.

In fairness, it's very hard to check for those, unless it affects a lot of papers, in which case it will probably be spotted at some stage.

Short of physically checking every single individual paper sent out in every subject ... what are we talking, circa 400,000 papers?

JellyBeans92 wrote: »

When it comes down to it, why should they check the papers?

I forgot.. it's only peoples grades and potential college places they're messing with?

Read what I said again.

I didn't say they don't check the papers, ofc they do ... at every stage of the process.

That's how you get announcements re: minor errors which aren't serious enough to merit the whole paper being reprinted.

What I said was that where a glitch occurs in the printing process which only affects a tiny percentage of the papers, it's very hard to combat that.

Even checking samples at random from every bale won't necessarily pick it up.

The only way would be to check every single paper for every single subject individually / one at a time.

Which, given a minimum of 400,000 papers ...

JellyBeans92 wrote: »

And even the Irish Times knew about an error at least 2 days ago?
Couldn't they have been making provision to try get more papers printed?

They do have a surplus of papers printed always.

Re: the Irish Times, are we sure it's the same error that they were on about? If it was, why were they waiting for schools to inform them?

Unless the problem was spotted among the surplus papers, but they didn't know which schools had received the faulty ones, or even if any had?

Look, I don't know all the details here yet and neither do you. I am by no means an apologist for the SEC as should be pretty obvious on this forum.

But there are reasonable and indeed necessary checks which should be made, and even when all those are made, an error can creep through.

Let's wait for the full story before we hang the SEC out to dry on this one!

randylonghorn

wonderfulname wrote: »

Something tells me the error predicted was not the missing sheets, the missing sheets were only noticed when the paper was handed out, did the supervisor read a correction out at the beginning of your exam? If so that is actually the error, and its the usual way for them to rectify mistakes.

Apparently a correction was read out at the start of the OL exam.

I think you're right, this is a different issue and was totally unexpected.

CosmicLove

We had the dodgy papers today, & the teacher who is responsible for organizing the exams in our school said someone from the Irish Times phoned the school just after the papers were distributed to inform them of the misprint error, not the department of edu!
She rang the department of edu. and they faxed us the paper.

**Timbuk2**

There was no correction read out for HL.

There were multiple corrections read out for OL. I wasn't paying attention, but I know there were a few significant corrections, such as changing April to August, and Going to Question 5, Subsection 5, and deleting subsection 5. There were more too. They sound very significant - most of the time the errors they correct were small, and sometimes even insignificant.

Talking to my friends that did pass though none of the corrections fazed them though. However, it still begs the question how well are these papers proof-read?