As results day looms, students complain that changes were rushed in, with errors in papers and inadequate revision materials available

Students awaiting their A-level results next week have described the stress of sitting new, untested qualifications this summer for which many felt ill prepared, with no past papers, no mark schemes and no clarity about grade boundaries.

Many complained that the changes, introduced by the Tories, had been “rushed in”, with teachers and students struggling to master demanding new syllabuses, aided by few revision materials. The pressure was compounded by the fact that the new qualifications are solely assessed on end-of-year exams, rather than coursework and AS-levels halfway through.

“I feel like I’m a lab rat being tested on,” said one student, who sat economics, geography and biology this summer. “No past papers. No examiner reports. Misleading specimen papers. No mark schemes. No practice. It’s been awful. So much relies upon these results, and I’m terrified.”

Responding to a Guardian call-out to readers, students who got in touch said a number of errors and alleged leaks of papers during the exam season had added to the stress of the ordeal. There was also concern about having to sit a mixture of old and new A-levels as the amended qualifications are gradually rolled out. New A-levels in 13 subjects were examined this summer. The rest have remained the same.

Beyond results day on Thursday, many students expressed fears about the cost of going to university, with increasing tuition fees and student debt. “Grades are one thing, but frankly it’s student loans I’m worried about,” said one A-level candidate from Manchester. “I wish I didn’t have to bother, but I need a degree. I feel like the punchline of a very cruel joke.”

The exams watchdog Ofqual has reassured this year’s A-level cohort they will not be disadvantaged by the new qualifications. Even if performance drops, the principle of comparable outcomes will be used to ensure that this year’s national results are similar to last year’s.

Julie Swan, Ofqual’s executive director for general qualifications, explained: “While the subject content has been updated to support students’ progression to higher education, the level of demand of the content and its volume have not changed.

“The exam boards will use statistical predictions when setting grade boundaries, making sure this year’s students are not disadvantaged because they are the first to take the qualifications. So a student who might have expected to get a grade B last year, for example, should expect to get a grade B this year.”

But many who contacted the Guardian remained anxious. “The level of uncertainty is huge, which makes the stress and pressure immense,” said one student who sat history, physics and maths this summer. “Support from the exam boards has been laughably non-existent.”

She said she had suffered a panic attack during a maths paper (which was not among the amended A-levels) on one of the hottest days of the year in a packed hall with no air conditioning. “Since the paper was possibly leaked, we are also all afraid that the exam boards will hike up the grade boundaries and we will be collectively punished.

“For physics [which is among the new, amended A-levels], we had two specimen papers, released very close to exam time, with no grade boundaries, so we had no idea how well we had done. It’s a complete scandal that exam boards can release a specification with absolutely no preparation or guidance.

“A-levels were, without exaggeration, the worst month of my life,” she went on. “ I have frequent dreams about results day and get stress headaches even more than a month after, and this is really common in all my friends. I’m terrified.”

Daniel Molland from Arundel, West Sussex, sat biology, chemistry and English language. His papers for both biology and chemistry contained errors, but this worried him less than the lack of revision materials.

“Any student will tell you that exam practice using old papers is so important, but with the new specification there were hardly any resources aside from one or two sets of practice papers,” said Molland.

“This made exam practice for everyone much harder, especially seeing as the exam boards really changed the style in which they ask their questions now, with a lot more emphasis on understanding than blind recall.”

Molland, who is hoping to go to King’s College London, said there was “massive confusion” over grade boundaries. “Being the first year we don’t really know what the grade boundaries will be. Our teachers can mark our work, but they don’t have a clue what grade to give it without any data on these boundaries.”



On the errors in some papers, he said the exam boards’ apparent inability to check exam papers properly “has just further decreased our trust and respect for them. Which is sad, because these new A-levels do offer some really good and interesting content.”

Lorcan Canavan, of Woodford Green, north-east London, sat new, linear qualifications for English literature and history, but the old modular syllabus for politics. “The main issue has been a lack of communication between exam boards and schools,” he said. “We really feel like guinea pigs for these new, linear specifications.

“Another issue has been the fact that our year has been a transitional year. Some qualifications are linear, but some are modular. This has made it very difficult for subject departments to coordinate, especially with regard to mock exams.”

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it had been an unprecedented year of qualification reform. “We always knew that this would be a volatile year for examinations – a result of hasty reform that has put huge pressure on students, teachers and school and college leaders.

“But we also know that the overall level of exam errors – for example, misprints in papers – doesn’t appear greater than in previous years. Young people are bound to worry about results, especially in the midst of so much change, and in an age when social media can make it easier for individual cases to gain disproportionate attention.”

Nevertheless, he said there were lessons to be learned and there would be a serious examination postmortem with Ofqual’s chief regulator, Sally Collier.



Some students who got in touch were worried about the impact of the exams on their mental health. One student, who sat biology, chemistry and English literature and is hoping to study medicine, said: “I have put most of what I had into these exams. I was racked with anxiety and insomnia which meant I was battling with keeping my sanity during exam season. With these reformed subjects you walk in blind – you have no cash-ins from AS. You have virtually nothing.”



Ellie Dixon-Coyte from Kent, who took history, classics and fine art and is hoping to study classical civilisation at Durham University, said the reforms had particularly affected her history studies. “So much was crammed into the specifcation that my teachers struggled to fit it all in,” she said.



Her teachers had to mark papers “with no context for how examiners will mark them, and we students have had to write essays in the dark. Since there are no grade boundaries, figuring out what grade I am likely to get is like throwing a dart at a revolving board – completely unpredictable.”

One student who is applying to study medicine was thrown by an error in the OCR biology paper. “They say it was only one question which had a mistake. But that one question affects your entire mind during the exam, altering your stress levels during an already high pressure period of time.”

He was also affected by alleged leaks of papers. “The leaks make you more worried about your results, as students with the means to cheat have an advantage in what was already an extremely difficult exam.

“A-levels were not a level playing field this year compared with last year. We had to learn everything in the two years of sixth form, followed by a new questioning style. We didn’t have enough past papers and had to rely solely on our instincts during our exams.”

Another student from Bristol is hoping to go to university, but is worried about the toll GCSEs and A-levels have already taken on her mental health. “A-levels are not about learning – they are about grasping techniques to pass exams. By the end of the year, we were all walking zombie-robots, conditioned to succeed in exam conditions but exhausted, drowning in stress.”



One London student said: “I am grateful I only had one reformed subject (history) as it really is very hard to learn that volume of content. Unreformed A-levels are by no means easy, but the government obviously didn’t listen to students and teachers when passing the reforms.

“I also don’t think it was clever to change the grading system of GCSEs [from A* to G to 9 to 1] at the same time as the A-levels, as teachers are obviously incredibly stressed about having to deal with changes to both key exam years.”

While A-level results are expected to be broadly stable despite the upheaval for those taking them, GCSE results on 24 August are likely to be far more problematic because of the new grades.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We’ve reformed A-levels to keep pace with universities’ and employers’ demands, so students are as well prepared as possible for work and further study.

“We would always want exams to be error-free, but occasional errors do happen. Ofqual is working closely with the exam boards to mitigate the impact of errors and leaks this year and ensure that results are fair to all students.”

