Exclusive: 24 hours after BPTC students completed Monday’s centrally set ethics exam, a mock paper from 2011 was posted on Facebook containing several questions that featured in the assessment they had just sat. The students are not amused…
The mock paper is entitled “BPTC Professional Ethics Formative Assessment March 2011” and has BPP Law School branding. It was posted online via the ‘BPTC City Law School 2012-13’ Facebook group, and is available here.
According to BPTC students who contacted Legal Cheek, the mock paper contains as many as eight questions which are “virtually verbatim” to those which appeared in Monday’s ethics exam.
The chief concern is that some students would have enjoyed an unfair advantage if they had seen the mock paper in advance of Monday’s exam. However, several current students on the BPTC at BPP Law School have said that they have never seen it before. We’ll keep you posted via Twitter/Facebook as and when we hear from more BPP BPTC students.
This morning, when contacted by Legal Cheek, the Bar Standards Board (BSB) issued this response from its head of education and training, Simon Thornton-Wood: “We are aware of this very serious issue and are conducting a thorough investigation. It would be inappropriate to comment further until we have completed that process.”
This isn’t, of course, the first time that there have been major issues with centrally set BSB assessments…