NUS Cancels Exam At The Last Minute
BREAKING NEWS by Natalie Kuan
3 October 2011
The National University of Singapore (NUS) was forced to cancel one of its mid year managerial economics exam last Saturday, October 1st, due to an insufficient number of exam scripts.
The move, which came at the eleventh hour, left many first-year undergraduates fuming outside the exam venue.
“I feel so cheated, studying so hard for an exam which I didn’t even end up taking! ” said undergraduate Nigel Zee.
For some students however, the cancellation brought about a wave of relief.
“I had two exams on that day and wasn’t fully prepared. It’s a good thing I chose to study for my other paper!” said Business student Ng Hui Jie.
An NUS spokesperson attributed the blunder to “human error”, revealing that a shortage of 200 scripts was discovered only at “about 2pm”, moments before the exam was scheduled to start.
The spokesperson explained that all options were considered before a decision was made to cancel the test.
“There was insufficient time to make additional copies as another test had been scheduled in the same hall immediately after the stated test.”
750 copies of the BSP 1005 Managerial Economics were supposed to be printed for a class of 725.
Despite the discovery at 2pm, no immediate formal announcement was made to inform students that the exam had been cancelled. Instead, news that the exam had been cancelled was passed down through word of mouth.
A student, who only wanted to be known as Mr Kang criticized NUS business school for handling the situation poorly.
“No one told us anything. We were all just waiting outside the exam hall, until rumors that the exam had been cancelled began to surface.”
Only several hours after the fiasco did the course coordinator send out a formal apology to all affected undergraduates via e-mail. Apologizing for the "completely unintended" gaffe, he explained that the last minute discovery made it difficult to “rearrange another sitting for the exam”.
He also added that there would not be a mid-year exam.
The 30 percent weightage of the exam will now be redistributed to other assignments including the end of year exam, whilst the question paper will be reused for practice and tutorial discussions.
NUS has said that it is currently looking into the matter and will “strengthen the processes” to prevent the repeat of such an incident.
3 October 2011
The National University of Singapore (NUS) was forced to cancel one of its mid year managerial economics exam last Saturday, October 1st, due to an insufficient number of exam scripts.
The move, which came at the eleventh hour, left many first-year undergraduates fuming outside the exam venue.
“I feel so cheated, studying so hard for an exam which I didn’t even end up taking! ” said undergraduate Nigel Zee.
For some students however, the cancellation brought about a wave of relief.
“I had two exams on that day and wasn’t fully prepared. It’s a good thing I chose to study for my other paper!” said Business student Ng Hui Jie.
An NUS spokesperson attributed the blunder to “human error”, revealing that a shortage of 200 scripts was discovered only at “about 2pm”, moments before the exam was scheduled to start.
The spokesperson explained that all options were considered before a decision was made to cancel the test.
“There was insufficient time to make additional copies as another test had been scheduled in the same hall immediately after the stated test.”
750 copies of the BSP 1005 Managerial Economics were supposed to be printed for a class of 725.
Despite the discovery at 2pm, no immediate formal announcement was made to inform students that the exam had been cancelled. Instead, news that the exam had been cancelled was passed down through word of mouth.
A student, who only wanted to be known as Mr Kang criticized NUS business school for handling the situation poorly.
“No one told us anything. We were all just waiting outside the exam hall, until rumors that the exam had been cancelled began to surface.”
Only several hours after the fiasco did the course coordinator send out a formal apology to all affected undergraduates via e-mail. Apologizing for the "completely unintended" gaffe, he explained that the last minute discovery made it difficult to “rearrange another sitting for the exam”.
He also added that there would not be a mid-year exam.
The 30 percent weightage of the exam will now be redistributed to other assignments including the end of year exam, whilst the question paper will be reused for practice and tutorial discussions.
NUS has said that it is currently looking into the matter and will “strengthen the processes” to prevent the repeat of such an incident.