It was reported today that the AQA exam board failed to send out the source booklet for its humanities GCSE exam. AQA were told about the mistake but insisted the students sat the exam. As this was worth around a third of the total marks, the students must have found this decision very disturbing. AQA say they will base the results on the other two-thirds of the paper. It just shows how much AQA values source work.

It also shows just how close to complete meltdown the examination system has become and what a high status qualification a GCSE in Humanities really is

Yes I doubt very much if the exam would have been allowed to go ahead if it was an important part of a maths exam.

Such has been the massive increase in the number of tests and exams in the last 10 years that bureaucratic mistakes have become more and more likely.
I have worked for a number of examining board for a number of years (have now hung up red pen!) and have witnessed a catalogue of appalling errors which would make your hair fall out (yes this is how it happened).
I was particularly horrified one year I was marking a GCSE paper and was called up for what was sold to me as "emergency residential marking" in July.
When I arrived at the Examining board's HQ I was whisked off to a darkened room where literally thousands of exam bundles were strewn about the place stacked high everywhere. There I sat with 10 other desperadoes marking about 20 scripts an hour for 5 and a half days at triple rates. Food was delivered to us through the days and in the evenings we were whisked off to a rather nice hotel in London. If I had been more resourceful I would have saved my self alot of ink and headaches and sold a couple of photographs of the chaos to the dirty tabloids!

Since these events I haven't expected organisational competence from the exam boards but up until now I have expected them to at least write a question paper the students can answer