'Printing Error' Gives Students Answers On Back Of Exam Paper

It sounds like every student's dream -- turning over an exam paper and finding the answers on the back.

But that's what happened to 12,000 lucky London teenagers when they sat down to take the GCSE music exam last week.

The OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA) examination board today finally admitted to the rumoured mistake, and say it was because of a "printing error" that papers sent to schools had answers to questions on the back page.

"All exam papers have a copyright statement dealing with source material on the back page," an OCR spokeswoman said. "This one in particular had more detail than is usual in a music paper."

The exam board said only five percent of the overall marks on the paper were possibly affected and students would not have to do a re-sit as most of them weren't smart enough to be realise their good fortune.

"It is unlikely that any of the 12,000 students sitting the examination would have recognised the value of the information... and subsequently used it," said the spokeswoman, adding there had been just 20 queries from teachers.

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