Second year medicine students in University College Dublin (UCD) will have to resit an exam that was "compromised" as similar past papers of the test were circulated among students.
Student representatives from the class were told at a meeting with the faculty that around 230 student out of approx 300 that took the test received an A grade, according to the University Observer student newspaper. The module 'PHYS20050 Cell-Cell Communication' was taken my medicine, biomedical science, and physiology students.
The exam was “compromised” as a version of the test from another year was circulated among the class before they sat the exam. In most courses past papers from previous years are available to students, but in the specific medicine module they are not made available by the school.
The multiple choice exam, which students took before Christmas, was worth 100 per cent of the grade for the module. When UCD students received their results from the first semester of classes last month, students in the class were informed they would have to retake the exam.
It is understood the past paper circulated among students sitting the exam this December was very similar to the test they took.
A senior source in the university said they were “aware” of the issue with the exam, and the process of dealing with the matter had been started by the relevant school.
“The system identifies when something is compromised ... when you have a bell curve shifting like that in one direction, it’s raised and looked at,” the source said.
Speaking to the University Observer, a third year medicine student said she provided a friend taking the course this year with a copy of the multiple choice exam she sat previously.
“This year, someone in the year below me asked my friend for the notes she had for Cell-Cell and since my friend knew I had the questions and answers from sitting the repeat she asked me for them. I gave them to her to pass on and I told her to encourage them to pass them to everyone in their year and they did” the student said.
The module coordinator, Associate Professor John Baugh, was not available for comment at the time of publication.
The exam itself was made up of several questions which each had five multiple choice options, and no negative marking if students answered incorrectly.
Students will now have to resit the test at the next opportunity during the summer period of exams at the end of the college year.
