Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

Students Beat ChatGPT At This Exam, Score 76%, Compared To Chatbot's 47%

Students Beat ChatGPT At This Exam, Score 76%, Compared To Chatbot's 47%

Despite this, they said that ChatGPT's performance was "impressive" and that it was a "game changer that will change the way everyone teaches and learns - for the better."
Researchers found students to have fared better at accounting exams than ChatGPT, OpenAI's chatbot product.

Despite this, they said that ChatGPT's performance was "impressive" and that it was a "game changer that will change the way everyone teaches and learns - for the better."

The researchers from Brigham Young University (BYU), US, and 186 other universities wanted to know how OpenAI's technology would fare on accounting exams. They have published their findings in the journal Issues in Accounting Education.

In the researchers' accounting exam, students scored an overall average of 76.7 per cent, compared to ChatGPT's score of 47.4 per cent.

While in 11.3 per cent of the questions, ChatGPT was found to score higher than the student average, doing particularly well on accounting information systems (AIS) and auditing, the AI bot was found to perform worse on tax, financial, and managerial assessments. Researchers think this could possibly be because ChatGPT struggled with the mathematical processes required for the latter type.

The AI bot, which uses machine learning to generate natural language text, was further found to do better on true/false questions (68.7 per cent correct) and multiple-choice questions (59.5 per cent), but struggled with short-answer questions (between 28.7 and 39.1 per cent).

In general, the researchers said that higher-order questions were harder for ChatGPT to answer. In fact, sometimes ChatGPT was found to provide authoritative written descriptions for incorrect answers, or answer the same question different ways.

They also found that ChatGPT often provided explanations for its answers, even if they were incorrect. Other times, it went on to select the wrong multiple-choice answer, despite providing accurate descriptions.

Researchers importantly noted that ChatGPT sometimes made up facts. For example, when providing a reference, it generated a real-looking reference that was completely fabricated. The work and sometimes the authors did not even exist.

The bot was seen to also make nonsensical mathematical errors such as adding two numbers in a subtraction problem, or dividing numbers incorrectly.

Wanting to add to the intense ongoing debate about how how models like ChatGPT should factor into education, lead study author David Wood, a BYU professor of accounting, decided to recruit as many professors as possible to see how the AI fared against actual university accounting students.

His co-author recruiting pitch on social media exploded: 327 co-authors from 186 educational institutions in 14 countries participated in the research, contributing 25,181 classroom accounting exam questions.

They also recruited undergraduate BYU students to feed another 2,268 textbook test bank questions to ChatGPT. The questions covered AIS, auditing, financial accounting, managerial accounting and tax, and varied in difficulty and type (true/false, multiple choice, short answer).
Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
×