A curious claim linked to a Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) board exam has caught the internet’s attention after images of a Class 12 mathematics question paper began circulating widely on social media. The exam was conducted on March 9.

According to several posts shared by students online, scanning a QR code printed on the paper reportedly opened the music video of “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. If true, the scan would have effectively “rickrolled” anyone who tried accessing the code during or after the exam.

The claim spread quickly across platforms such as Reddit and X (formerly Twitter), where students uploaded screenshots of the paper and shared reactions. It is still unclear whether the QR code in question appeared on every version of the examination paper or whether the viral image represents an isolated instance. Because of this uncertainty, the story has remained somewhere between a genuine exam-day anomaly and an online rumour.

What is rickrolling?

Rickrolling is a long-running internet prank in which people are tricked into opening the music video of “Never Gonna Give You Up” instead of the link they expected. The meme first gained popularity in the mid-2000s and has since remained one of the web’s most recognisable jokes.

Not all reactions online were light-hearted. Some students on Reddit’s education forums questioned how a link unrelated to the exam could appear on an official board paper. QR codes printed on such documents are usually intended for authentication or security verification. One user even suggested that the incident could point to “a serious issue” if exam material can redirect users to unrelated content.

So far, the CBSE has not released a detailed clarification about how the QR code may have linked to the video. Even without an official explanation, the incident has already become an unusual moment in India’s board exam season—where the tension of a three-hour mathematics paper briefly intersected with one of the internet’s oldest pranks.