VCE scores changed over Battle Tech Marauder confusionClick on the above link to see the original painting as well as a close-up model of a Maurader II BattleMech.February 8, 2013
Jewel TopsfieldOne hundred and thirty confused VCE history students had their scores adjusted after an artwork featuring a mysterious robot who appeared to be assisting socialist revolutionaries in 1917 was accidentally used in last year's exam.
The VCE exam body apologised after the doctored version of Storming of the Winter Palace by Nikolai Kochergin formed part of a question about the Russian Revolution in the History: Revolutions exam.
The altered image had been sourced from the internet.
While many students did not notice a giant robot - rather like BattleTech Marauder II – in the background of the artwork, others were distracted by the strange image, suggesting it was anything from a statue of prime minister Alexander Kerensky, who was supported by the Mensheviks, to the battleship Aurora.
A Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority spokesman said that of the 2379 students who answered that question in the exam, 130 or 5.5 per cent, had their scores adjusted due to the robot.
The exam body looked at every student's answer to the question in relation to their marks on the rest of the paper.
Where their score for that question was significantly lower than the projected score, it was adjusted up to the expected range.
The VCAA spokesman said 27 students referred to the robot image in their answer.
Those students were way off anyway: everyone knows that Alexsandr Kerensky piloted an Atlas BattleMech, not a Maurader II!
(That's all I got.)
