A-level exam ‘leaked’ and offered for sale on Snapchat
A-LEVELS are up for sale on Snapchat, it has been claimed, as an investigation was last night launched into an exam paper being leaked online.
The two-hour chemistry paper by AQA, Britain’s biggest exam board, was sat by thousands of students yesterday morning – however some said they recognised the questions.
Photographs of 12 entire pages from the paper detailing questions and graphs were purportedly sold on Snapchat, a social media app, up to a week in advance of pupils sitting it. Screenshots surfaced on Twitter last night claiming to show an unknown Snapchat account advertising the leaked photos, telling teenagers to “message [me] for the whole paper – must be payment ready”.
One Twitter account, since deleted, appeared to share screenshots of the leak and informed AQA of it on June 13, seven days before the exam.
Furious students are complaining to exam bosses saying they must revert to teachers’ predicted grades or may lose university places.
An AQA spokesman said: “We’re very disappointed to hear that some students may have seen our A-level chemistry paper 2 before the exam. Our exams integrity team is investigating and will take any action necessary, including working with the police.
“We realise students might be concerned, but we’d like to reassure them that there are lots of things we can do to make sure no-one has an unfair advantage – which could include monitoring for any students with suspicious performance on this paper.”
The exam board declined to disclose which areas of the country may be affected and denied it had time to replace the paper beforehand.
Ella Warren, 20, a chemistry A-level student from London, said: “My main concerns are that it’s impossible to ensure no one has an unfair advantage or disadvantage.”
A video of the paper was also shared on the app Tiktok, since deleted, raising fears there will be no way to establish how many students have seen it and grade boundaries for the paper, which are based on averages, could be skewed.
The paper, on organic and physical chemistry, is one of three assessments for A-level students and is worth 35 per cent of the total qualification.
It comes after two people were arrested after a maths paper by rival exam board Edexcel was leaked in 2019, the third year in a row, prompting a student protest outside its headquarters.
One of the options available to AQA in the chemistry case will be to discount the entire paper and raise the weighting of the other two papers to 50 per cent.
Headteachers have welcomed plans being considered by Ofqual, England’s exams watchdog, to move GCSES and A-levels permanently online as they argue it would improve security.
An Ofqual spokesman said it “takes security breaches extremely seriously” and “will make sure its rules on investigations and malpractice are followed”.