I could see that this was a disaster waiting to happen

Anne Rickwood, former Edexcel examiner

The association's director of curriculum and quality, Judith Norrington, said: "It seems extraordinary that Edexcel cannot quality assure the model questions on their own website, which unfortunately only confirms the anxieties which colleges around the country have expressed to us for the last year."

The authority has been asked by the Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, to publish its latest routine audit of Edexcel as soon as possible.

'Disaster waiting to happen'

The former head of the international department at Edexcel, Anne Rickwood, said she had foreseen the board might run into difficulties before she left in 1999.

"I could see that this was a disaster waiting to happen," she said.

Ms Rickwood said exam boards became increasingly competitive and market-orientated after the launch of the National Curriculum.

But a competitive culture was not appropriate because of the volume and intensity of work involved, she said.

"If you have departments competing with each other, there are going to be black holes into which things can fall, such as we see happening now."

Action plan

Staff at Edexcel have spent most of the week investigating a host of similar queries.

A spokeswoman said most of these had turned out to be "salacious" - such as the Devon students' course work supposedly lost by the exam board, which turned up in a college store room.

She said Edexcel had agreed a nine-point action plan with the AoC to improve its services to colleges.

This included having two college representatives on Edexcel's council and setting up a further education forum, which is due to meet for the first time next month.

"Therefore we are surprised that they have raised this now," she added.

The question - if wrong - would be removed from the website.

A truck of mass 3 tonnes moves on straight horizontal rails. It collides with truck B of mass 1 tonne, which is moving on the same rails. Immediately before the collision, the speed of A is 3 ms^-1 and the trucks are moving towards each other. In the collision, the trucks couple to form a single body C, which continues to move on the rails.

(a) Find the speed and direction of C after the collision. (4 marks)
(b) Find, in Ns, the magnitude of the impulse exerted by B on A in the collision. (3 marks)
(c) State a modelling assumption which you have made about the trucks in your solution (1 mark)

Immediately after the collision, a constant braking force of magnitude 250 N is applied to C. It comes to rest in a distance d metres.

(d) Find the value of d. (4 marks)

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