Not all from the same candidate, of course.

In the "interview" paper, several candidates used lower case on roads.

One marker wrote: "This is a newspaper, for Pete's sake, not a txt msg."

Some candidates went a step further and described an attacker in their report as having 'died blonde' hair.

The word 'diarrhoea' was mis-spelt many different ways.

Candidates are permitted to use dictionaries during the exam, yet the submitted articles also included: 'ruff' local accent, 'un-kept' hair instead of 'unkempt', 'cheep' brandy and 'scare' instead of 'scar'.

In the "speech" paper, the Safe Street campaign became variously Safer Street, Street Safe and Save the Street.

And the £200,000 cost of the study strangely varied enormously in value – from £2,000 to £230,000, £250,000 and £300,000!

Then, in the logbook section, one candidate was failed for a story about councillors' expenses in which the key figure was inaccurate and the sums involved failed to add up.

The judges asked: "Why the candidate chose to submit this as evidence of her numeracy is as baffling as her trainer's decision to endorse it with the comment 'a story in which accuracy was vital'."

Click for more on this year's NCE results.

Back to the training index

Do you have a story about the regional press? Ring 0116 227 3122/3121, or
e-mail pastill@nep.co.uk