A-level Chemistry Paper 2 – analysis of student performance

We promised that we’d update you on the outcomes of our investigation into the leak of our A-level Chemistry Paper 2 exam.

Our Exams Integrity team has been very busy investigating this, to find and take the necessary action against any individual(s) responsible for this breach or for buying a copy of the paper before the exam.

As this is an ongoing investigation we’re limited by how much we can share, but we can confirm that this paper was stolen from a Parcelforce van while on its way to a school and we’ve reported that theft to the police. We're still working to find those responsible.

Disappointingly, the stolen paper was then offered for sale on social media. Where we’ve identified students who had full access to the paper before the exam, we’ve sanctioned these students according to the appropriate JCQ Malpractice Tariff – which in this case is disqualification from the qualification.

While some images of this paper were circulating on social media, they were of such poor quality that they would not have offered a significant clear advantage to students who saw these small extracts of the paper. Nor would students seeing those images have known that they were of the actual paper, as many other revision aids, including past paper images were being legitimately shared.

We understand that some of you were disappointed that we did not replace the paper, but unfortunately it really was not possible to replace this paper with a suitable alternative in the time we had.

In our last news message, we explained that we have tried and tested things we can do to make sure no-one has an unfair advantage when something like this happens. In these circumstances, we found the best route was to analyse how students performed on this paper after everything was marked to see if we could find any statistical evidence that this leaked paper resulted in higher than expected cohort attainment, or suspicious performance.

Our analysis

Our research and analysis teams carried out robust and proven analysis, including looking at performance statistics on and between all three papers this summer. We also compared performance on Paper 2 with performance in 2019 when exams were last sat. Finally, we undertook some modelling to predict expected performance, which we cross-checked against the intelligence available to our Exams Integrity team about individual students.

After completing our extensive analysis, we’ve been able to rule out a gain in marks or performance that would impact the grade boundaries. This means that the students who sat this paper have performed just as we expected them to.

As the investigation is ongoing, it’s possible that we’ll still identify others responsible or involved in this – and, even after results are published, we can and will take action against them.

We’re very disappointed this happened, especially after all the hard work students and teachers have put into these last two years to prepare. We hope that this offers you reassurance to feel satisfied that the results issued to our students are accurate, and that we’ve taken appropriate action against individuals known to have had an unfair advantage.