Pupils hopeless and crying after 'poorly worded' Higher Maths exam

"I was expecting the second paper to be easy if they made the first paper hard - it absolutely was not.

"It was as if both papers were constructed in a way that was preventing people from getting top marks."

He called for a review of the paper and wants a formal explanation from Qualifications Scotland.

"You can't do this to people," he said. "It needs to be fair, what was done just wasn't fair."

Ben, a pupil in Perth and Kinross, told the BBC that he expected the paper to be difficult - but took issue with the wording of questions which he said felt "unclear and inconsistent" with previous papers.

"For many students, the problem was not knowing what the question was actually asking or which method was intended, despite understanding the mathematical content itself," he added.

The EIS has asked their maths teachers network about the paper - the initial feedback is that the exam was fair.

Maths teacher Chris Smith is among those who believe this - he told the BBC that Higher Maths needs to be "rigorous" because it is such a valuable qualification.

"There should be questions that are routine," he said. "But there should also be questions which test and stretch the best candidates. This was a good paper that had both."

Qualifications Scotland said it monitors reaction to exams on social media and that quality assurance was in place before and after.

A spokesperson said: "All exam papers are created and checked by experienced subject teachers, including the principal assessors, to make sure they are clear, fair and suitable for learners.

"Papers can vary in difficulty year by year and this is taken into account during our normal marking and grading process so that learners' final grades fairly reflect their achievements and maintain standards."

The Scottish government has been asked to comment.

Exam papers are drafted and re-drafted for about 12 months before pupils sit down with the final paper.

And within about a week of an exam being sat, staff at Qualifications Scotland, should start getting an idea of how the paper has been received.

If there were a question or series of questions which the majority of pupils have struggled to answer correctly, that question (or the results from it) may be dropped from the paper. Or the overall pass mark could be dropped.

Normally this would be addressed only at the awarding stage - when the staff and examiners look at what the pass boundaries are for grades A to C.

Back in 2015 there was uproar about the Higher Maths. Paper and the pass threshold for a C had to be dropped to 34%.

The final straw was the 2020 fiasco when exams were cancelled and teachers estimated results for students.

But then thousands of pupils had their grades lowered by the SQA.

Qualifications Scotland was only created earlier this year and as such faces more scrutiny than ever before.

Especially as the stated aim of the new body was to "win back trust".

So, a petition calling for a review of one its highest uptake subjects is at best difficult timing for the new body.