Anyone else have 0 faith in the exam system?

On that note about examiners having no prior knowledge - A few years ago, my tutor for politics, who also teaches philosophy, decided she would do some exam paper marking for some extra money, she did it for philosophy I think, but they were asking her if she could also do it for psychology? A subject she has NO knowledge on and NO qualification in? They knew this, but still wanted her to mark Psychology papers?!

For GCSE/A Level, I would suggest many changes. I would scrap the exam board system and replace it with state-sector agencies setting both the syllabus and exams for each subject. These agencies would have representatives from areas candidates taking the course in question are likely to go into, such as universities and employers, depending on exactly what the course was, so that the exam was set by people with a genuine knowledge of the subject at hand who also know what skills they want successful candidates to possess, and also removing the ridiculous competition to make money through putting out easier exams, or charging silly amounts for re-marks.

I would try to reduce the need for remarks by appointing only university-level professors as examiners - we can quite easily get them to do this as the vast majority are still public sector. Each examiner should also have around 10% of their batch also marked by a second examiner, and if there is a significant difference in a large number of papers then their whole batch should be referred to a senior examiner to mark. I would then provide photocopies and remarks of papers at-cost, with a full refund if there is a difference of more than around 2% in the new mark compared to the old one.

In terms of coursework, I would make schools/colleges/whatevers send off everyone's, from which a random proportion are moderated. This means that they don't know who's will be checked, so they have to make sure all pieces have been marked accurately and honestly rather than just those pieces they are told to send off. A consistent failure to mark it appropriately should be noted in Ofsted inspections (I haven;'t talked about those lot yet but rest assured I am plenty critical of them too :P )

I would try to reduce the need for remarks by appointing only university-level professors as examiners - we can quite easily get them to do this as the vast majority are still public sector. Each examiner should also have around 10% of their batch also marked by a second examiner, and if there is a significant difference in a large number of papers then their whole batch should be referred to a senior examiner to mark. I would then provide photocopies and remarks of papers at-cost, with a full refund if there is a difference of more than around 2% in the new mark compared to the old one.

Exactly , most of the examiners do it for money. Basically the way they mark it is the 'converter technique' Teachers get sets of answers from lets say a 100 papers, but it's all for only one of the questions , so the examiner never sees the full answer paper , just the specific part of it that he/she is designated to mark.

Only the ones that put a bit of effort into it do extra research, which is a not really fair , since we spend months doing exactly that.

How much time exactly do you think university professors have to sit down and mark hundreds of GCSE/A-level scripts, when they have their own university and their own students to worry about?

The problem isn't the actual people marking the scripts at the moment; it's the amount of marking they have to do. Everybody is liable to mistakes, and when teachers sit down and mark hundreds and hundreds of exam scripts in a row, they're going to of course miss something. Especially with the pay they get for doing it.

How much time exactly do you think university professors have to sit down and mark hundreds of GCSE/A-level scripts, when they have their own university and their own students to worry about?

The problem isn't the actual people marking the scripts at the moment; it's the amount of marking they have to do. Everybody is liable to mistakes, and when teachers sit down and mark hundreds and hundreds of exam scripts in a row, they're going to of course miss something. Especially with the pay they get for doing it.

That's a nice plan , however it's not likely to happen due to the large profits that they make.

All the exam boards except Edexcel are non-profit making organisations. They make a loss on the majority of exam and recoup it on the mass entry subjects such as GCSE Maths and English.

My experience is that only people who get bad grades have no faith in the exam system

Do your work and you'll get the grades. I don't see the problem.

Oops...controversial.

But, if I were Education Secretary, I'd scrap all exam boards, and reinstate them with one central (govt. controlled) exam authority. Everything is standardised, everyone gets same paper on the same day. Same A*-U grades, fixed proportions of the candidates get each grade (eg top 5%=A*, next 15% is A etc.) No complaints, none of this "OMGOMGOMG AQA is easier, OCR is waaaay harder, my A is like your C" nonsense...

In AQA Economics Unit 1 this January, for the 5 marker they asked what the definition of derived demand was. I answered it and got 5/5 and my friend only defined demand and still got full marks. I'm happy for her and all, but how? She didn't completely answer the question at all.

All exams do is test knowledge, not really how you apply it. Anyone can easily memorise a history book with key dates and get an A*, but it doesn't mean that they are a top-class historian.

Looking through the post on this thread makes me realise one common theme that I noticed halfway through Year 13.

I value my education highly and I absolutely love learning, but A Levels aren't about that. There is a hugh obsession with marks to the point where it got too much for me. I could study so hard and go through all the content and past papers, but I still didn't do well. When I settled into A Levels after 3 months of sorting out my options, I had high hopes of doing well (getting mostly Bs and maybe the odd A) and I kept this hope up throughout year 12 and until halfway in year 13. By the time I finished my A Levels, I was so fed up, exhausted, irritable and so glad they were over, because I was sick and tired of doing them. It was just constantly exams exams exams, and marks marks marks. My motivation and confidence were slipping away, because for years previously I'd been so used to learning and studying hard. It didn't help that I had family issues, which were catching up on me and affecting my ability to do well, and putting me under tremendous strain.

I'm so glad I'm not studying A Levels anymore, I couldn't bear to put myself through that again. I just hope that studying a foundation year (starting this September) and a three year degree afterwards in a subject I love and I'm passionate about will not be bad experiences like my A Levels were.