A-level students have been “thrown off” and “upset” after an exam paper was missing pages and questions expected on Shakespeare texts.
Unions said Othello - which some had studied - was completely absent from the Welsh A-level exam this week, while half of the questions expected on two other plays were also missing.
The exam board has apologised for what is called a “paper collation error” in its Shakespeare exam.
Students in Wales said this mistake caused them problems when taking the WJEC exam this week, with
Kira Humphreys, who took the test on Tuesday, told The Independent she opened the newspaper to find half of a Shakespeare excerpt she was supposed to answer when asked about the disappearance.
The students continued the exam while the proctors tried to fix the problem.
"The missing snippet completely threw me off my feet and I was more focused on whether or not I would get the second half of the snippet," the 18-year-old said.
She said she got the missing snippet about 20 minutes later, but left the exam feeling like she had done her best.
Another student told The Independent: 'I was lucky to get a decent copy 30 minutes into the exam, but others waited an hour as invigilators rushed to print them out and hand them out. ."
They added: 'Our work has been badly affected and without the ability to redo this section I don't see how anyone could achieve a fair result given that many have been affected at different levels.'
Some students were not affected by the missing pages at all, as they were writing different texts which were provided in full.
Eithne Hughes of the Association of School and College Leaders Cymru said there would "inevitably" be "problems getting started" with summer exams this year, ahead of the first held since the Covid pandemic.
But she said the union was 'stunned by the lack of quality assurance and quality control' which led to students being handed assignments missing 'four critical pages' in the English language and literature exam A2 Unit 3 Tuesday.
"Learners who have studied and revised Shakespeare diligently and who expect questions about Othello will have been thrown into a state of panic by the complete absence of the play from the journal, while those studying both Much Ado About Nothing and The Tempest were missing half of the questions they were anticipating,” the union leader said.
She added: "We note that WJEC has apologized to the learners affected, but that does little to address the emotional upheaval and distress caused by mistakes that simply should not have happened."
Meanwhile, students reportedly left another A-level exam in tears after content was included for which students were unprepared.
One tweeted that it was 'awful and completely unlike anything we had been prepared for'.
Ms Hughes said A-level maths pupils reported that 'some of the questions on their paper were so difficult to interpret that they were virtually inaccessible'.
A spokesperson for the exam board in charge, WJEC, said the A-level English error was a "rare occurrence" and it took the matter "very seriously".
"We want to reassure students that we have robust procedures in place to ensure they are not disadvantaged and are treated fairly," they said.
"All exam responses will be carefully considered during the grading and grading process to ensure that all students receive a fair qualifying outcome"
The exam board spokesperson added: "This is our immediate priority, and once the results are released in August, we will carefully review the reasons for the error that occurred and take appropriate action."
At A level maths, the spokesperson said: 'We can confirm that all questions on the A level maths unit 3 exam were taken from the subject content in the specification and not based on the knowledge and understanding of topics identified as removed from assessment in 2022.”
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