Earthquake puts Scholarship exams on hold (+ video)

Local students remain in limbo as they wait to hear when they will be able to sit their Scholarship exams, which were postponed due to Monday's deadly earthquake.

While NCEA examinations continued as normal for all schools unaffected by the earthquake, NZ Scholarship exams were postponed nationwide on Monday.

All exams are now back on schedule for those in unaffected areas.

An NZQA spokeswoman, who did not want to be named, said more than 1000 students had been impacted by the postponed exams nationwide but did not know how many of those were in Rotorua.

John Paul College students Jessica Macdonald (Year 13), 17, and Adam Schweizer (Year 12), 17, were supposed to sit their NZ Scholarship exam for chemistry on Monday.

Jessica said she still hadn't heard when the exam would be rescheduled but she had other exams to worry about in the meantime. She was slightly thankful for the extra study time.

"I don't think you can ever be ready for Scholarship, some of the questions are so complex so you have to know it really well. We are mainly thinking about the people who have been affected by the earthquake. I have friends down there in the South Island.

"We just don't know what's going to happen because they haven't told us when [the exams]will be," she said.

Adam said he wasn't too worried about the postponement.

"The aftershocks are still going on in the areas it hit, I don't think you'd be able to concentrate," he said. "It could be a good thing because you get a bit more time to prepare for it."