Students at an Auckland school were 20 minutes into their history scholarship exam on Monday morning before it was cancelled.
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) issued a release shortly before 9am, saying the 9.30am exam would be postponed, along with this afternoon's chemistry scholarship exam because of this morning's 7.5 magnitude earthquake.
All NCEA exams would continue as scheduled, unless a school was damaged or otherwise affected by the quake, NZQA said.
However, pupils in at least one school began to take the exam before it was announced to them that it had been cancelled.
One parent of a Takapuna Grammar Year 13 student who sat the history scholarship exam today said they were 20 minutes in and had seen the questions before they were told to go home.
``One of the students apparently . . . said to the invigilator, `the scholarship exam's off', and the invigilator said, `no, no that's still going ahead, sit down and start','' she said.
``Then someone else came in about 20 minutes later and all the kids knew straight away what they were in for . . .
`We don't know what will happen now. Those kids have seen the paper.''
They were sent home without any advice on what would happen next, she said.
``They were just told to go home.''
She contacted NZQA and its initial response was that no student would have seen the paper, she said.
Following questions from the Herald, NZQA said it would provide a new paper for all history scholarship students to sit.
Management at the exam body were expecting some students may see the exam questions, she said, ``because of the short notice'' given before it was postponed, a spokeswoman said.
A new paper would be issued to schools. No date has yet been set for the re-sit.
It is not yet known how many schools continued with the exam, or how many pupils may have seen the questions before they were sent home, NZQA said.
Takapuna Grammar principal Mary Nixon was not immediately available for comment.
