On Monday, 7 November 2022 Grade 12 learners around South Africa wrote the final Mathematics Paper of the 2022 National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams. When learners reached question 5, many were unable to solve the question.
The reason why learners could not solve question 5.1 of the Mathematics Paper 2 is because the department had made an error when setting up the paper. The error meant that the question could not be included in the marking process and subsequently contribute to the results learners received on 20 January 2023.
Quality assurance body Umalusi explained their decision to remove the question was to ensure that learners were not disadvantaged by the error it detected in the exam. They have also revealed the steps taken to ensure learners weren't disadvantaged.
Question 5 accounted for 30 marks out of the 150 mark Mathematics Paper 2.
The faulty question, question 5.1, accounted for 7 marks out of the 30 marks allocated to question 5. Umalusi decided to exclude question 5.1 and its allocated marks from the total marks of question 5.
This meant that question 5 now only accounted for 23 marks. Learners would be marked out of 23 and their total marks would be converted to a mark out of 30.
Given its problematic nature, sub-question 5.1 was excluded entirely to mitigate the possible impact of the error on learner performance. The following instruction was given to all marking centres.
Here’s How The Marks Were Converted
Mark achieved by the learner was scaled up to a mark out of 30 marks
1 converted to 1
2 converted to 3
3 converted to 4
4 converted to 5
5 converted to 7
6 converted to 8
7 converted to 9
8 converted to 10
9 converted to 12
10 converted to 13
11 converted to 14
12 converted to 16
13 converted to 17
14 converted to 18
15 converted to 20
16 converted to 21
17 converted to 22
18 converted to 23
19 converted to 25
20 converted to 26
21 converted to 27
22 converted to 29
23 converted to 30
Umalusi said they were satisfied that this action to convert the marks had mitigated the effect the error would have on the results achieved by learners.
