Exam board may be fined for question error
Mistake in question on the Bard’s Romeo and Juliet rakes up a row
London, Aug. 13: A UK examination’s regulator on Sunday indicated that it may consider a fine on an examination board over a blunder in its Shakespeare question which mixed up the two warring clans of the Bard’s most popular play Romeo and Juliet.
The Oxford, Cambridge and RSA (OCR) examinations board confused the Capulets and the Montagues in a question on the English literature General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) paper taken by around 14,000 teenagers.
Candidates appearing for the exam on May 26 were asked: “How does Shakespeare present the ways in which Tybalt’s hatred of the Capulets influences the outcome of the play?”
Since Tybalt is Juliet’s cousin and a Capulet, the question should have referred to his hatred of the Montagues.
“The Romeo and Juliet error is a unique case. It was a bad error, it was an unacceptable error,” Sally Collier, chief regulator of Ofqual, told The Sunday Times. “We have been working very closely with the OCR to ensure everything possible is done to minimise the impact on student performance. I want to return to this after the summer and as a regulator I may well want to take action. I have a range of powers at my disposal. I can fine them, investigate them or direct them to take a specific action,” she said.
Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s most performed plays.
It has also been adapted for the big screen by George Cukor in 1935, Franco Zeffirelli in 1968, and Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 MTV-inspired version, starring a young Leonardo DiCaprio. — PTI