A STUDENT has spoken of her frustration after a exam board blunder left her attempting an "impossible" GCSE paper.

Abigail Bromby, 16, a pupil at Cramington Community High School, in Northumberland, was among thousands of students made to sit a humanities GCSE paper without a booklet needed to answer the questions.

The AQA exam board failed to send out the booklets, but told pupils to go ahead with the exam.

The exam, taken by pupils at 150 schools and colleges across the country, questioned pupils about the sources contained in the missing booklet.

Ms Bromby said: "People did not know what they were supposed to be doing. You could not include dates and times from the booklet, so no one knew what was going on.

"It is really annoying and makes you nervous that something like this could happen in other subjects."

A spokeswoman for AQA said: "An administrative error on our part meant that fresh copies of that pre-released information have not been sent out as they should have been.

"We understand that it is going to be unsettling and distressing for the candidates, but it is our error and we will put it right."

It is thought to have affected more than 11,000 youngsters.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) has now demanded a full report from the board.

A spokeswoman said: "We do not underestimate the disruption and concern this error has caused candidates and will ensure that AQA acts so that every candidate gets valid results.

"QCA has also sought assurances that AQA has systems in place to ensure that this kind of error does not happen again.