"We are aware of the importance for us all of the reputation of the Economics Department, and the University of York, and of maintaining the high standards, both academic and procedural, that are essential for our staff and students," said York University in a statement last week, in response to a series of embarrassing blunders in an exam paper on microeconomics.
The exam paper included two misspellings of the word "and", and more confusingly, an incorrect algebraic expression. But apart from these mistakes, the university said, "the paper was in entirely grammatically correct English".
However, that was not enough to stop some 61 of the 250 students who sat the exam from complaining.