Mathayom 6 (Grade 12) Thai students who recently took the Ordinary National Education Tests (Onet) will receive 24 extra points on the science exam as a result of administrative test errors.
Two different versions of the exams (No. 100 and No. 200) were distributed among 400,000 students at various universities in Narathiwat province. No issues were found with the No. 100 version. However, in about 80,000 copies of version No. 200, 16 questions were repeated and 13 more were missing.
Samphan Phanpruek, director of the National Institute of Educational Testing Service (Niets), commented, “Our investigations show computer errors were the cause of the mistakes made when publishing the No.200 exam papers,” Mr Samphan said.
“To make up for the flaw, 24 extra marks will be given to all 400,000 test takers.”
Some students disagree with the decision. Thanawit Krintrakul from Triamudomsuksa School stated, “It is not really fair because both students who studied seriously and those who were lazy and did not prepare will get 24 extra marks. Even one point is very important for us to compete in our university applications.”
Onet made a similar mistake about a month ago. Mathayom 3 (Grade 9) students received 20 extra points on Thai language exams after flaws were detected on two of the questions.
Given these recent errors, some students are now asking school authorities to reconsider the standard use of Onet scores to calculate overall grade point averages.
Creative Commons Love: Sasamon Rattanalangkarn on Flickr
Written by Alice Formwalt