"Answer The Question" was built on the graph in the final question of this exam paper. My first decision was to make the volume of the choir's singing follow the curve of the graph (with 0 being loudest and 1.5 being silent) - so it begins at its loudest, decreases to near silence, crescendos again to its equal-loudest point at about three minutes, and fades away over the last section.

'In order to make this work I had to find a narrative in the piece that made this make sense: so the stark commands of the opening instructions "answer the whole of the question" give way to a nervous, shifting quieter section, then a building, intimidating interrogation to an angry climax, and finally a fade-out again on "time is lost".

It partly reflects the experience of an examination (not my own - I never had a problem with maths exams!) but also raises questions of authority, what orders we are prepared to accept from others, and "what is really required" in tests such as these - should we submit to the ways of thinking that are dictated for us, even at the cost of our own independence?

Copyright in this creative exam re-sit is held by Chris Hutchings, and published on this website with his kind permission.

Harry, Fit To Work's lyricist, says:

'It turns out that when you try to do a Maths paper 15 years after you studied for it, you can't. All the formulae and methods had completely left my head. Chatting it through with the band, we decided to focus the song on these very frustrations. What's it like when you go back to something that used to give you peace, and it's impossible to do it?

'Another obstacle I have, as a working poet, is figuring out how to write punk lyrics. What works as poetry doesn't work as punk, and what works as punk doesn't work as poetry.

'There are technical aspects to this: like the way that lyrics are written to a beat, but poems are written to metre. That gives you more space in a line, and the ability to play with pace and wordcount for effect, but you can't, say, play with enjambment like you can in a poem (we learned that word in Standard Grade English). A poem exists in space, the reader can scan back and forth, but a song exists in time, so if you want to say something you have to work with repetitions and reinforcement, rather than intratextual reference.'

Copyright in this creative exam re-sit is held by Fit To Work, and published on this website with their kind permission.

'I am standing in a broch on the Isle of Skye in March 2018. In front of me are eight volunteers, some of them more prepared than others for the biting wind and rain. In the face of bad weather, long drives and deep, deep uncertainty they came back each week.

'I said we would invent a new way of improvising vocal music in a broch which could be used to solve difficult algebra and trigonometry problems...

'We spread the notes of a pentatonic scale around the circular walls of the fort to see whether harmony could then be used to find the internal angles of a triangle. We developed a way of generating binary number sequences by following rules such as "either start or stop chanting if you see someone else in the group change their facial expression". We attempted to summon mathematical good fortune by setting to music an incantation from an early cuneiform tablet.

'We have made this film with the voice of Edwin Abbott reassuring us: "While the wisdom of man thinks it is working one thing, the wisdom of nature constrains it to work another, and quite a different and far better thing".'

Copyright in this creative exam re-sit is held by Hector MacInnes, and published on this website with his kind permission.

'The process of working on the set exam question about the demonised crow saw me begin a journey that took me into territory about "explaining carefully", and notions of being qualified and having authority; who asserts "power over" and with what assumed superiority, and the violence inherent in that often covert act; "covert" also being the name for the feather covering the base of a bird's flight-feather.

'Walking the words of the prose each day, it became clear that I would not choose the exam paper option 2a to "describe" but rather option 2b to "explain carefully". Scale became a factor. The generous bursary allowed me the possibility of good materials - near pure pigment with which to let strong images take form.

'Based on years of sketched-out encounters with crows and immersion in their dark lucidity, and also against the zeitgeist of often brutal intolerance of "other", the body of work that steadily emerged on the paper is offered as my "explanation" (as defined below by the Oxford English Dictionary*) in answer to the set question.'

*Explanation: A declaration made with a view to mutual understanding or reconciliation.

Copyright in this creative exam re-sit is held by Jules Bradbury, and published on this website with her kind permission.

'This piece answers question 2 b, working with the phrase "among the pervading grace and lightness of spring".

'The work is created using the techniques and materials of an 8th century insular scribe mixed with those of a contemporary graffiti writer. First a skin from a road kill deer was processed over a month into parchment. Then materials for the pigments were gathered - oak galls for the black, cudbear lichen for purple, woad for blue, and metals and minerals for other colours, including copper for green, lead for white, and red and arsenic for yellow. This is the same palette and technique as used in the Lindesfarne Gospels.

'The design was worked out on the parchment using geometry to divide the space, then graffiti letters and traditional insular scripts were inserted along with an instruction from the exam paper. The creatures and character from the text were included in the form of traditional Celtic stylised motifs and as street art style characters.

'The final, most nerve wracking, part was to splat red paint across the surface to represent the shooting of the crow and then burn magnesium onto the parchment to give the scorch mark from the shotgun blast.

Copyright in this creative exam re-sit is held by Thomas Keyes, and published on this website with his kind permission.

'"Proof" was inspired in part by my local village hall in Nethy Bridge. I find it a peaceful place yet it feels to me filled with friendly ghosts of events gone by. It evokes a bygone era in its style and atmosphere and struck me immediately as the site to film.

'One thing led to another as I invented the 're-sit' with two very different and quite solitary individuals meeting. Very fortunately for me, Christine and Lewis were available and Lewis was happy to shave for the part.

'We filmed very quickly over part of a day and went with the flow in the hall and later at the computer. Creating "Proof" was a joy and I hope this wee film might speak to young and old people of a time and place, as well as the tension and release of exam stress, albeit in an unusual way.'

Copyright in this creative exam re-sit is held by Robbie Synge, and published on this website with his kind permission.

'In doing this project, the only thing that was clear to me was that I wanted to bring the geometric shapes to life, as the characters in a play.

'Although the nature of the work is abstract per se, my aim was for the public to be able to read questions six and nine from the exam paper, and contribute to demystifying them through the dance, whether their knowledge of geometry is basic, or vast.

'I also made a point early on of not taking myself too seriously, of allowing the music, and the dancers, to guide me through it all. The end result was a lot of hard work but, of course, lots of fun too.'

Copyright in this creative exam re-sit and accompanying film is held by Vanessa Smer-Barreto, Roddy Simpson and Fermin Barreto Cedillo, and published on this website with their kind permission.

There is an additional piece of writing by Sarah McLauchlan who was with the National Library of Scotland on a placement experience from school.

We set Sarah a challenge to write a creative response to the needlework and homecraft exams from the early 1960s.

Sarah's use of the exam as a trigger to reveals the inner thoughts of the fictional student was inspired, with the domestic subject matter being used to great effect to examine 1960s gender roles and expectations.

Copyright in this creative exam re-sit is held by Sarah McLauchlan, and published on this website with her kind permission.