Radioactive bananas are this week’s GCSE exam food of choice

It seems this year’s GCSE exams are heavily culinary-themed, with one fruit being the latest food to bamboozle students.

Last week, it was boiled carrots in the AQA English test. This week? Bananas took centre stage in AQA Physics.

Even more confusingly, it appears the bananas were being used as a unit of measurement – for radiation.

Students were asked about why sieverts, a unit of measurement for a dose of radiation, should be changed to the banana equivalent dose – an informal measurement of radiation exposure.

Understandably, a few of the nation’s Year 11 students felt somewhat cheated, and turned to Twitter to find kindred souls.

But it seems the students’ worries did not end there.

Another cause for concern was the case of the magnesium atom. It appears students were asked to work out its radius using measurements in Figure 2…which apparently were not there.

Some were left wondering whether they had walked into a maths exam.

Meanwhile for others, it was the comfort of an unshaded bar chart which brought them in from the cold reality of the exam.

You can get points for colouring skills, right?

Any takers here with the correct answers? Help your peers out.