Campaigners said the 2026 paper was confusing due to being ‘poorly worded, inconsistently structured, and out of step with every previous paper’.
Nearly 15,000 Scots have demanded a probe into this year’s “shambolic” Higher Maths exam which left pupils “shell-shocked and gutted”.
Campaigners said the 2026 paper was confusing due to being “poorly worded, inconsistently structured, and out of step with every previous paper”.
Some 14,600 people have now signed a petition calling for newly created exam body Qualifications Scotland to review the exam paper.
The Higher Maths exam is split into two papers and both have caused problems for pupils – though the petition only complains about paper one.
One mum, from Lanarkshire, told the Sunday Mail the exam paper was “scandalous” and “not fit for purpose”.
She said her 16-year-old daughter – normally a straight-A student – had been left baffled and upset by the exam – especially the first of the two papers pupils did on May 7.
The parent said: “When they had the break between Paper 1 and Paper 2, a lot of the students coming out of the hall were shell-shocked.
“The general consensus was they didn’t know what the questions were even asking them – therefore, they couldn’t start the question, never mind complete it.
“My daughter was getting between 80-90 per cent in the previous past papers and she’s worked so hard all year, so going into the exam that morning, she felt really good.
“But then afterwards I could see from her face walking towards my car that she was absolutely gutted.
“Now she’s panicking about whether she’ll have to retake the course and if it’s going to impact her applications to universities.”
The grade for Higher Maths, unlike other courses, is 100 per cent based on the exam rather than mixed with other assessments or coursework.
It is the first year of exams under Qualifications Scotland, which replaced the controversial Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) earlier this year.
One of the chief complaints about the paper is that some “command words” – the words that indicate how you should answer the question – were different from what pupils had been taught to expect.
Qualifications Scotland said all papers were checked to make sure they are “clear, fair and suitable”.
About 20,000 pupils sat the Higher Maths exam last year.
The petition states: “This is not a complaint that the paper was too hard. Students expect to be challenged.
“The problem is that the 2026 Higher Maths Paper 1 used language and phrasing that was confusing, ambiguous, and inconsistent with every past paper students had revised from.
“Questions were not simply difficult — they were worded in ways that made it genuinely unclear what was being asked.
“Past SQA Higher Maths papers have followed a recognisable style… the 2026 Paper 1 departed from this in ways that penalised well-prepared students.”
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