Angry sixth-formers retake exam after hackers filter questions

Having already taken the Selectividad exam last week – a key paper which would determine whether they would make it to university this September – teens all over the region have been forced to go through the ordeal of revision and sitting the test again, despite staging protests in which they called for 'solutions, not repetitions'.

A hacker had uploaded a folder onto the University of Extremadura (UEx) website containing some of the questions for the summer 2018 sitting, which was downloaded 14 times onto six different mobile phones – and then, presumably, passed around the contacts of these phone owners.

This was not discovered until after students had already taken the exam.

Such was the outcry that the chairman of the Selectividad organising commission and deputy dean of students and employment at UEx, Ciro Pérez and chairman of the qualifications and exam board Javier Benítez, both resigned yesterday (Monday).

Selectividad is an exam taken in addition to the Spanish equivalent of A-levels, the Bachillerato, and students have to pass both to get into university.

The subjects affected – maths, Latin, arts foundation, applied maths, social sciences, geology, Ancient Greek and design – were taken by around 4,600 students in schools in Badajoz, Cáceres, Plasencia, Navalmoral de la Mata, Mérida, Don Benito, Zafa and Villanueva de la Serena, all of whom had to go back and do them again.

Some were enraged, others resigned, many described themselves as a bag of nerves – believing they had already got through the ordeal they had been dreading all spring and finding out they had to start again from scratch – but a handful of students who felt they had done badly the first time said they were actually looking forward to another chance at the test, having at least had a 'mock exam' with the first round.

Spokeswoman for the regional government of Extremadura, Isabel Gil Rosiña, expressed her 'respect' for Benítez and Pérez for their having accepted their responsibility for the fiasco and resigned.

She said it appeared to be a case of 'human error' which had allowed the exam questions to be filtered.

In response to the opposition PP party's demands that the regional secretary-general of education, Rafael Rodríguez de la Cruz, resign from his post, Sra Rosiña said her cabinet was not responsible because the university 'had its own governing body' and 'capacity for decisions, correct ones and mistakes'.

Photograph by the Student Coordination body