Police question 52-year-old who reportedly sneaked into Paris exam centre to sit three-hour English Baccalauréat test

With the Baccalauréat exam season under way in France amid endless media reports on stress, cheating and unbearable pressure, one mother who seemingly wanted to ensure the best result for her child has been questioned by police after disguising herself as her daughter in order to sit an English exam in her place.

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The 52-year-old woman, reportedly dressed in Converse baseball boots, jeans and a lot of makeup, managed to be admitted to an exam hall in a lycée in Paris instead of her 19-year-old daughter.

Because the exam centre was not at her daughter’s high school and because some adult students also sit the exams, she made it into the hall easily, laid out her pens and settled down to begin work on the three-hour English composition exam.

An invigilator who wandered up the rows of desks glancing at the candidates’ ID cards noticed the imposter straight away, having seen the daughter sitting a philosophy exam two days before. She notified the head of the exam centre but, not wishing to disturb the other students, did not evict the mother straight away.

Only after she had been writing her exam paper for two hours did plain clothes police arrive and wait outside the exam hall.

An invigilator gently asked the woman to leave. “Thankfully, she left with no difficulties,” a lycée representative told Le Parisien.

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“The 20 or so other candidates present didn’t notice anything.”

The woman was taken to a police station in Paris’s 10th arrondissement for questioning. It was not clear what sanctions the mother and daughter could now face, ranging from a fine to the daughter being barred from sitting exams for a period of years.

© Guardian News and Media 2013

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