New Delhi: Did CBSE just ‘rickroll’ students? Imagine returning home after a gruelling board exam and scanning the QR code on your question paper out of curiosity, only to be greeted by the unmistakable opening beats of Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley. That is the surprise several students say they encountered after the Class 12 Mathematics examination, when a QR code printed on some question papers appeared to redirect students to the music video for the 1987 hit — an internet prank popularly known as “rickrolling”.
Videos circulating on Instagram show students scanning the QR code, which then opens the iconic music video on YouTube.
Rickrolling is an internet meme in which unsuspecting users are tricked into opening the video for Never Gonna Give You Up, often through misleading links or codes. The meme is said to have originated around 2007 on platforms like 4chan and Reddit, where users would prank others by posting misleading links to the music video. The prank was also used in a campaign by the hacker group Anonymous to protest against the Church of Scientology. It has since become one of the internet’s longest-running memes.
Responding to the viral posts, CBSE said that in “a few question paper sets, it appears that when one of the given QR codes is scanned, it links to a YouTube video.” The board clarified that the question papers circulating online are genuine and that the security of the examination remains intact.
“It is hereby confirmed by the Board that the question papers were genuine. The
security of the question papers remains uncompromised,” CBSE said in a statement.
The board added that QR codes are printed on question papers as a security feature to verify their authenticity in case of suspected leaks or breaches. The Class 12 Maths board exam was held on 9 March, and soon after the test, several students discovered that they had become a part of the long-running internet joke.
Also read: New book champions AI-Climate nexus. It’s co-written by Amitabh Kant
An unexpected prank
Social media platforms including X and Reddit are flooded with reactions, with users joking about the unexpected prank. Some students expressed disbelief at the bizarre discovery, while others questioned how the link ended up embedded in an official exam paper. “First they make you cry, then they rickroll you,” one user on X said. One quipped, “In today’s episode of how serious our examination conducting authorities are-presenting to you CBSE class 12th board Maths paper.”
Last month, CBSE sparked debate among students, parents, and teachers over alleged disparities in difficulty levels across sets of Class 10 Maths and Class 12 Physics question papers.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)