Several thousands pupils have joined a Facebook group in protest at a History exam they judge to be unfair because it was “rock hard”. The A-level, exam, which asked questions about the past and stuff like that, was thought by many pupils to be “unfair”.

“I thought it would be multiple choice”, opined Tarquin Umbroglio of the Shytte School for Boys. “But they wanted me to write real words and everything. How can they expect us to get our usual A* plus grades when we’re expected to write, spell and everything?”

The examining board in charge of the paper last night claimed that it was “entirely proper” for the children to have to write words and spell properly, and insisted that it would not back down. The Facebook group is growing by the second, though, with pupils from all round the country indignant.

“This has ruined my chances of getting an A*** super-plus,” said Rebecca, 17, from Dullby in Humberside. “I was doing so well with the multiple choice Geography exam, especially as there were only two choices for each question! And then this comes along – our teachers didn’t prepare us properly for writing real words. They didn’t even tell us the questions beforehand.

“I tried my best but I couldn’t remember whether to write in real English or in text, so I just wrote in text and hoped I’d get away with it. Still, the examination board want to meet their targets of 100% A’s, so you get 90% of the marks for just writing your name so I reckon I’m OK.”

Education Secretary Ed Balls defended claims that standards were getting lower every year by saying “Actually, standards are so good that we’ve had to introduce new grades to show just how well our kids are doing. So the A*** super-plus can only be exceeded by the AAA**** mega-plus grade. Everyone gets A’s nowadays, though, in one form or another, so that’s real progress that you can see and touch folks.”

He continued: “I’ll be having words with the examination board, though. This looks like a serious effort to wreck our chances of 100% A-pass grades by making it hard.”