The outcry from parents, and heartbreak suffered by many candidates caused the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, to review the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, results.
Now, 379,997 candidates, cutting across six states of the federation, would retake the examination from Friday May 16 to 18.
However, before JAMB reached that decision, some candidates had narrated their experiences during the UTME exam to Vanguard.
JAMB should review the results: According to a 15-year-old candidate, “I was a bit nervous. But overall, it was a good exam. It was simpler than expected, and I didn’t have any problems in the exam hall. My computer worked perfectly. But I got a score of 145.
“However, I’m very sure I did better than this. I would appreciate it if they could review the results.”
Answers without questions: A candidate said: “I wrote my UTME at a private school in Lagos. My experience was quite normal.
“However, there were a few questions that didn’t have questions attached to them, just the (answer) options. There were about 15 of them.
“The supervisor told us to randomly pick answers, and that the issue would definitely be sorted out at the headquarters.
“I sat for English Language, Physics, Biology and Chemistry, and scored a little above 200. But I’ve been hearing a lot of things about the scores this year.”
‘I scored 234, but…’
“I am 18 years old, and I scored 234 in my exam. Well, the exam was not that bad, although it had a lot of stress, because I had to leave my home by 6.30 a.m. The paper was scheduled for 7.30 a.m., but we ended up writing it past 8 p.m., or a few minutes to 9 p.m.
“We had to go through different stressful processes such as thumbprinting, before the exam started formally.
“Considering the fact that it was my first time, I had to make little patches and fix myself up.
“When I started, I had one or two issues because I didn’t know how to log into my JAMB account. I got little assistance from the student sitting close to me.
“I wrote a combination of Mathematics, Government, Economics, and English. When I started with Maths, I had to run back to Government because the first five questions were challenging. I wrote my Government and immediately rushed to Economics. Economics was not that hard because it was one of my best subjects right from time.
“The only challenge we had with English was that the book we were supposed to read for the 2025 exam, the questions we expected didn’t come out. It was a 160-page book, but I ended up seeing just nine questions from it. Then I moved to Mathematics, which was a tricky one. I ended up scoring 53 out of 100 in Mathematics.”
‘Supervisors were mean’
Another 2025 UTME candidate told Vanguard: “I would have done better in this year’s JAMB. But there were a lot of complications due to the educational standard of our country. A lot of people, their scores didn’t come out. I know of a girl who had to check her results twice before the main results came out. Initially, she scored 194. After trying it again, she scored 286.
“I know of another girl who had to check her results just last night (Tuesday). With all the stress and all the preparation lessons, she ended up scoring 174. I know it’s because of the stress, She had to leave home by 6.30 a.m. Because of the road construction that was going on, I had to trek for quite a distance, before I could take a bike. Then I ended up at the wrong UTME centre.
“When I finally arrived, we were 200 that started the exam at about 9p.m. Before then, the thumbprinting was done. Some candidates had to go and wash their hands and clean it before applying again, because the machine was not responding to the thumbs.
“The supervisors were mean. They were not even ready to give assistance. Not even to first-timers. They would be like ‘Didn’t you go for CBT training? Didn’t they teach you this and that?’ I had to talk to them. I think the girls noticed that I was having one or two issues. That was when one helped me with my issues.”
‘This is not my result’
Another candidate told Vanguard: “I am 16 years old. I wrote my exam on the 26th of May. I scored 166. But I know that cannot be my true score. I wrote English, Mathematics, Economics and Government.
“The English was, for me, simple. I don’t know about other candidates. And then the Government as well was very simple for me because I actually used the JAMB syllabus and I covered everything. Economics was as well very simple, just like the Government. The Maths too was okay.
“My score came out 44 in English, 41 in Government, and Maths 45. I thought I should be scoring low in Maths. How is this kind of result possible? At the CBT (exam) Centre, everything went smoothly.
“I don’t know, maybe there was an error in the marking of the exam. But that score? It can’t be for me at all. Coming down to Economics, I got 41. It’s not even possible at all, at all.”