The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) is defending the difficulty of NCEA exam questions for students trying to achieve excellence endorsements this year.

The authority said it had received seven complaints about its Level 2 maths exam earlier this week and two complaints about the Level 2 biology exam.

Jann Marshall, NZQA deputy chief executive - assessment, said she could not comment on the specifics of the questions while exams were being marked.

However, she said every NCEA assessment had a range of less difficult and more difficult questions reflecting the fact that students were awarded Not Achieved, Achieved, Merit or Excellence grades.

Marshall said questions related to achievement at the Excellence level were more difficult.

"Excellence level achievement for biology requires the demonstration of comprehensive understanding, and for maths, extended abstract thinking," she said.

"Questions designed to elicit responses at the Excellence level may contain unfamiliar contexts to which students are expected to apply their foundational subject knowledge.

"NZQA expects students to apply knowledge - not reproduce memorised responses - to demonstrate their understanding."

Marshall said exam papers were developed and quality-assured by writing teams of five or more experienced subject teachers at that NCEA level.

She said in the rare instance that the design of a question disadvantaged students, marking panels were instructed to calibrate their marking accordingly.

The 2024 NCEA and scholarship exams began on Tuesday this week. Friday's exams included Level 1 maths, which had more than 28,000 candidates.

'Plain ridiculous'

Meanwhile, a petition calling for consistency in NCEA exam questions had attracted more than 1700 signatures. The petition claimed changes to content often rendered students' preparation ineffective.

"This frequent alteration in examination material disallows students from accurately knowing what to study, leading to undue stress and potential underperformance," it said.

"To improve student preparation and consequently, academic performance, we are urging NCEA to maintain consistency in their examination content, ensuring it accurately reflects the curriculum and resources provided to students throughout the year."

One signatory wrote they were usually a straight Excellence student, but both the biology and maths questions were just plain ridiculous."

"I attempted the Level 2 NCEA maths (all three algebra calculus and probability papers) this year and find the Merit and Excellence questions are too unpredictable," wrote another.