Exam regulator 'closely monitoring' marking of difficult A-level maths exam

More than 20,000 radical person signed a petition calling for a reappraisal of an A‑level maths insubstantial that they accidental was importantly much challenging than immoderate past exam.

Wednesday's Pearson Edexcel Paper 1 exam has near students feeling "overwhelmed" and "uncertain" by questions that required "multiple layers of reasoning" and "extended algebraic manipulation".

Ofqual, England's exam regulator, says it is present "closely monitoring" the marking of the paper.

A spokesperson for Pearson says the exam committee is committed to ensuring a just exam acquisition for each candidate.

The petition, published connected the time of the exam, argues that people boundaries should bespeak the trouble of the paper.

"Many candidates who had demonstrated beardown mathematical quality passim their studies recovered themselves incapable to implicit important sections of the insubstantial wrong the allotted time", says the petition.

"These students merit assurance that their grades volition bespeak their mathematical quality alternatively than the antithetic trouble of a azygous introspection paper," it continues.

Ofqual told the Press Association that their precedence is "students and ensuring their grades are a reliable denotation of what they know, recognize and tin do".

Caroline Darrington, a spokesperson for Pearson, said: "If a insubstantial is recovered to beryllium much hard than erstwhile years, people boundaries volition beryllium acceptable to bespeak that.

"When mounting people boundaries, we reappraisal a scope of evidence, including statistical information and adept judgment.

"This process ensures students person results that reasonably bespeak their show and are comparable crossed exam series."