Memorial University's math department forgot to check its work last week, accidentally giving failing grades to a couple of hundred high school students who wrote the university's math placement test.

The Math Placement Test determines which level of math students will take when they enroll at Memorial University.

Martha Ennis, a student at Booth Memorial High School in St. John's, had a 91 per cent grade in her Grade 12 math class. The aspiring business major checked her test score online last week, two days before she was set to graduate from high school.

Martha Ennis mistakenly received a failing grade on Memorial University's Math Placement test. (CBC)

She got an unpleasant surprise when she discovered her test score was 41 per cent.

"It's kind of bad because you need over 55 to get into the regular 1090 math course," complained Ennis.

Ennis was upset and called her friends to vent, and the more she chatted with her friends, the more she realized she wasn't alone.

"My friend said his cousin in Clarenville [reported that] all their tests out there were wrong too," said Ennis.

After Ennis realized she wasn't the problem, she told her mother, who alerted the math department at Memorial University.

University phones started ringing

Professor Edgar Goodaire, the interim head of Memorial's Department of Mathematics and Statistics, said as soon as the marks were posted, the university knew something was wrong.

"The results were posted online at 12 o'clock, and at 12:01, our phone started ringing," said Goodaire.

About 1,500 students in Newfoundland and Labrador took the test earlier this month. The university used about eight different versions of the test. One version was graded using the wrong answer key, which affected many prospective students.

"I would think with a couple of hundred, certainly, the marks were completely bogus," admitted Goodaire.

Memorial University corrected the problem and sent apologies to the students who were affected.

Ennis said by last Thursday, her last day of high school, her real score was posted.

"I ended up with a 73", said a relieved Ennis.

Goodaire said nothing like this has ever happened before at Memorial University's math department.

As for the odds on whether such a mistake could happen again, "That's a question of statistics and I'm not a statistician," smiled Goodaire.