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Support for an online campaign complaining that this year’s Higher Maths exams were too difficult has skyrocketed in the space of just a few hours.

Shell-shocked students took to the internet within hours of sitting the new Higher Maths paper on Wednesday to launch a petition urging the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) to take into account the exam’s difficulty when marking it in the coming days and weeks.

And it appears the SQA may have to consider their concerns carefully after the petition’s initial target of 1,500 signatures was exceeded in just over seven hours.

Campaigners claimed that the “outcome of the exam reduced individuals to tears and extreme stress due to the high volume of ‘A/B’ type questions” and asked people to voice their opinions which students have done in their droves.See also:SQA urges pupils to stay calm after Higher Maths complaintsAnother version of the petition claims: “Students, teachers and parents alike are in disbelief at the exam set by the SQA for Higher Maths. It bore no resemblance to the CFE course studied and specimen papers provided.

Well on the bright side at least the toad made it out of the well!! #highermaths — Cameron Nelson (@camzo_nel) May 20, 2015

“The general consensus is that the majority of questions were so hard the students weren’t able to solve them. The SQA should be investigated as this is an outrage. Pupils have put so much preparation into this subject and have now been left traumatised.”

Scores of signatories who sat the exam are from Tayside and Fife, and all of them felt short-changed after weeks and months of hard work and revision.

One Dundee pupil told The Courier: “Everyone thought the exam was bad. Twitter has gone mad and everyone is angry at the SQA.

https://twitter.com/bharr71/status/601143907586564103

“My maths teacher says it was nothing like the exemplar or the specimen papers.

“There are going to be a lot of complaints because pupils won’t have attempted loads of the questions so they’ll have to take that into consideration at marking.

“It left people in tears and one of my friends was really upset because she had worked so hard and felt she had done so badly.

“It wasn’t fair. The exam wasn’t like anything we had prepared for.”

The SQA have yet to comment on the exam criticism, but the EIS teaching union said there were procedures in place to deal with “rogue” questions.

Questions in exam papers which about 95% of students get wrong can be removed from the overall score and grades adjusted accordingly.