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.
A Pearson Edexcel spokesperson said: “We do not want any error on any paper. The mistake identified in today’s GCSE History paper is disappointing and we apologise to candidates.
“We have tried and tested procedures in place to ensure that students will not be impacted. All of our assessment materials go through a rigorous process in which writers, subject experts and assessment experts collaborate to approve the final versions that candidates will see, and mistakes are rare.
“We work tirelessly on ensuring that our assessments are error-free and allow candidates to perform their best.”
But one student from County Durham, who sat the paper on Thursday, told the PA news agency: “We are the ones who have worked tirelessly for two years, putting in hours of revision, only to have our hard work undermined by an easily identifiable error. It is unclear what actions will be taken to rectify this issue leaving me and others who have sat this exam nervous of how this will impact our history grade.”
Explaining the impact of the error in the question, she added: “The 100-year difference completely changes the correct answer to the question. Sydenham’s discovery did not have impact in this time period and his ideas were not accepted until long after his death, in fact he was ridiculed while he was alive. The mistake in the question led me and other students to question our own knowledge and threw us completely off."
