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Exam boundaries were more generous during the past two years to account for disruption to pupils’ learning during lockdowns. Pupils in England face a return to 2019 grading levels this year.
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Patcham High School in Brighton also urged pupils not to fall for the scams. “Keep working hard and seeking advice from teachers instead,” the school added. On Monday morning, Whitburn Church of England Academy in Sunderland said in a message to students that adverts on social media for leaked papers “are almost always scams and losing money will only add to your stresses”. “You wouldn’t meet a single student across this whole year that has not heard of these accounts. “These accounts are actually very clever and sneaky in what they do – preying on this vulnerability. ‘They are everywhere’Ī 15-year-old girl said: “The people who buy from these accounts are your most desperate students.
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One Instagram account that advertises leaked GCSE papers claims that students who pay for them are guaranteed to pass and promises to return money to customers who don’t get grade 4 or above.Ī TikTok account that uses the official logo of the AQA exam board asks followers to message another account to pay for exam papers and displays messages allegedly from happy customers. Schools warned students not to fall for the scams after they were reported by the BBC on Monday.Ī GCSE pupil, who was quoted £500 for a paper by someone on Instagram, told the BBC that the prospect of buying papers in advance was “the most talked about hype” of exam season.Īnother pupil said they knew of classmates who had paid up to £900 for an exam paper.
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A-Level and GCSE pupils have been duped into paying hundreds of pounds for fake exam papers on Instagram and TikTok, an investigation has found.
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