Majority of the candidates who attempted this question wrote comprehensively on the compilation of the Qur’ān which was done long ago instead of standardization which was during the caliphate of Uthman b. ‘Affan.  Though the two exercises were related to the preservation of the Qur’ān but there was no way the candidates could have captured points such as differences in the recitation of the Qur’ān, retrieval of various copies of the Qur’ān in circulation then and the harmonization of dialectical variations with the adoption of the Quraysh dialect, when the emphasis was on the compilation of the Qur’ān.  Candidates’ performance in this question was not impressive.