ATAR English exam: Year 12s urged to reflect on ‘inappropriate’ cyber abuse of featured author

Year 12s who posted negative comments about a writer whose work they were asked to analyse in their ATAR English exam have been urged to reflect on the “inappropriateness” of their actions by WA’s School Curriculum and Standards Authority. Each year the English exam throws up at least one question that flummoxes students and fires up social media. This year, memes of swooping magpies spread on social media after around 9500 students sat the exam on Monday, which asked them to analyse and compare two texts about magpies. SCSA refused to release a copy of the paper, saying it would be published when all examination processes were completed. But students revealed one of the controversial texts was a gentle tribute to magpies by Scottish writer Esther Woolfson. The other was taken from a satirical piece about magpie swooping season by Australian writer Ben Pobjie, who suggested various preposterous defences against the marauding birds. After their exam, some students posted abusive messages under reviews for Woolfson’s book, Corvus: A Life with Birds. “Maybe if you didn’t have a relationship with a bird I wouldn’t have had to write about it,” one said. “SCSA pulling text 1, the extract about (a magpie) ‘weighing less than a cup of sugar’, from this (book) for the WACE English exam to determine whether or not around 8000 school leavers get the course that they want to (for) uni, is crazy,” wrote another. A spokesperson for SCSA said it did not condone posting of abusive comments on any website or social platform. “The authority would hope that students would reflect on any inappropriateness of comments posted on social media,” they said. Woolfson’s text had been selected for its suitability for evaluating how texts offer perspective through “selection of language features that generate empathy or controversy”. “The text was also suitable for comprehending purposes related to textual analysis and comparison with the second text about magpies, which treated them in a completely different way,” the spokesperson added. Many teens were tickled by Pobjie’s advice to counter-attack swooping birds with weapons such as “shoulder-mounted missiles”. But some were devastated they did not realise until after the exam the over-the-top piece was satire. “Me halfway through my response before realising he didn’t actually hate magpies,” one teen wrote on TikTok, followed by a crying-face emoji. Students had an hour to answer two questions in section one — the “comprehending” portion of the exam — worth 30 per cent of their overall mark. Many were shocked at being asked to compare two written texts in such a short space of time and lamented the absence of a visual image to analyse. But others commented how “easy” they found the exam. Last year, it was a question about a picture of a clothesline that had students in a spin, while an excerpt from a novel about a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus imprisoned in an aquarium inspired some to create humorous “free Marcellus” posts. “First an octopus, now a magpie — what’s next year?” one teen asked on TikTok. Two years ago, NSW Education Standards Authority started offering support to writers when their work was included in exams because of the increased online abuse many were copping from disgruntled students. “In NSW, we make clear that it is not OK for students to post comments online that are offensive to the artists and authors selected to be part of exam stimulus,” a spokesperson said.