An exam board has apologised to GCSE candidates for a “disappointing” 100-year error in a history exam paper which candidates say put them off. The Medicine in Britain paper set by Pearson Edexcel and sat by pupils on Thursday (May 18) referred to Thomas Sydenham’s book Observationes Medicae being published in 1576, rather than the correct date of 1676.
The hundred-year difference was fundamental to understanding the question, one pupil said, as it was understood to involve asking students to evaluate the physician’s impact on medicine from 1500-1700. The incorrect date in the question would imply Sydenham’s book had a larger impact in this period than it did in reality.
It was unclear how the exam board would mark the papers to take into account the mistake.
