"Ofqual has announced that it intends to fine OCR £175,000 as the error meant the paper was "not fit for purpose".

The question asked students: "How does Shakespeare present the ways in which Tybalt's hatred of the Capulets influences the outcome of the play?"

But, in fact, Tybalt is Juliet's cousin and so a Capulet himself, so the question should have referred to his hatred of the Montagues."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-44687294

To be fair, it's not necessarily the case in drama or in real life that a member of the wider family might not hate certain other members.

Unfortunately, that would have been a whole other play...

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

And the Literature specialist at OCR who wrote the question that caused such anguish to thousands of students and all the colleagues who proof read the paper what is happening to them?

Amazing this has taken a whole year. OCR say they have undertaken extensive research to avoid this mistake in the future.

Extensive research? The question just needed to be proof read by someone who knows the play.

How was the question marked?

Was the question voided and the whole paper marked on the poetry question? Or did they give credit to those who pretended that that question was the right one and answered it anyway? DG

DG - you could look at the mark scheme and the Examiners report - I doubt anyone on here will know the answer.

There have been worse mistakes in the past and errors will never be eliminated. I know we've had to ring exam boards before when we've seen something unusual.

My heart sinks when something like this results in a fine. What is the point of the fine? The issue is that if someone with any sense had actually sat the paper beforehand they would instantly have realised that the question was wrong. I think instead of fining them they should have required exam boards to ensure that at least one qualified individual sits every paper beforehand.

I would imagine that the majority of 16 year olds who had spent two years preparing for the R and J questions realised it was wrong. The report mentions many students starting the question and then abandoning it and doing the other question.

I write comprehension papers and always get them checked. Sometimes the question I write for one answer is also a question for a different answer that I did not anticipate because of the richness of the English language.

Rather than a fine they should be having to show the measures they have taken to try and avoid a repeat in the future.

The stakes are so high for someone to actually sit the paper though. Imagine how much desperate parents would pay to get access to the question beforehand and for someone to write a perfect answer for them and their student then just learn it. DG

You must know some very strange people DG. I don't know anyone who would cheat to give their child an unfair advantage.

Exam boards are under the same financial pressures as everyone else and have reduced their staff; checks are in place. I would suspect that the original question was correct but that somewhere in the process it got 'amended'.

I learnt very early on that you need to physically attempt the paper to avoid massive mistakes. Not the same obviously but I devised the end-of-year Year 7 French exam one year and forgot to add the letters to a matching task. It had been checked but not attempted so the entire question had to be ignored. Very embarrassing.

Here is the actual Examiner's report - see page 26.

"Examiners identified a number of approaches to the error in the question paper. After looking at candidates’ responses, examiners were asked to group responses into six categories.
The most frequent scenarios include answering the question literally – as it was written – or writing about Tybalt’s hatred in general. A significant number of students also responded to the question as it should have appeared."

http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/415557-exa ... report.pdf

DG - where does it say students gave up and tried the other question?

Poor kids. When mine get annoying school test questions etc with errors or poor wording etc, I always say it will not be like that at GCSE as there is a thorough checking and testing system for the papers. I need to stop saying that!

A fine is not ideal - but maybe a fine like that per error will make all exam boards (businesses)realise that cutting out a key quality control step is a false economy?