[Off To The Races]

Exam boards wield a significant amount of power in society if you think about it. They award qualifications which can be stepping stones for a future career. Therefore I feel it's essential that they don't f*ck up! How many of you guys trust the exam boards to get it right? Any exam board horror stories (remarks/moderations/appeals - all the good stuff!) would be appreciated.

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It's a slightly different matter for the humanities and subjective essay-writing subjects though. Is there any objectivity to the marking of them at all? Can any mark be given as long as it's justified? Writing an essay is not like balancing a chemical equation where there's only one way to get it right. If you get historical/economic/political facts wrong then fair enough, but can you objectively measure such things as analysis, evaluation and argument to a consistent scale? I don't feel that the AOs act as anything more than generic descriptors, you still can't objectively measure whether an essay/response satisfies a particular AO. What do you guys think about this?

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[MinorCatastrophe]

I'mgonna go with no. It surprises me how subjective exam boards are in terms of marking your paper. I'm currently awaiting my A level results, and I'm just praying that the examiner (s) who's marked it hasn't had a bad day!

I know of so many people who'd gotten their grade, sent it off for a remarking and got it back at an entirely different grade. It annoys me how some examiners mess up when marking and can't be bothered to check it, because they don't understand how important that paper is to the candidate, or how much effort they put in to pass, or get into uni.

I just wish an objective source e.g. computer could mark it. That said, an increasing amount of exam papers are marked through a computer.

[littleone271]

To be honest I don't fully 100% trust anyone with processing my grades or anything like that after all the problems I had with some useless staff at my college. I trusted the exam board far more than I did my college but being let down and being practically forced to take full responsibility for everything to allow for their mistakes just made me realise that at every stage of the system there's always room for human error and all it takes is for someone at some point down the line to press a wrong button or make an incorrect calculation etc. to mess up what you've worked so hard for.

[Mockery]

Definately going to have to vote for no, but we'll just have to put up with it.

[Conzy210]

I personally do trust exam boards, really just down to how limiting the majority of mark schemes are. As long as you know the appropriate exam technique, you should be fine whichever marker you get, obviously this is a good thing as it makes marking less subjective but at the same time it's so infuriating e.g. in Geography if you don't include a introduction and a conclusion with the right information in, no matter how good your geographical knowledge and body of your essay is, apparently you can't get out of band 2 which is 4/15 at most

[When you see it...]

In the same way that I trust a water company or a public transport company, yes. All three provide a service that is essential - we need it so we have no choice but to trust them. However, all three are run prvately (I know that all exam boards except Edexcel are charities, but they still have people in charge who can pay themselves more money if there are more people paying for resits) and therefore have a vested interest to overcharge for their services (ridiculous prices for simply getting an exam script back), provide subpar services in order to reduce expenditures (paying examiners low wages and paying per paper rather than per hour, meaning they mark in a rush in order for it to be worth it) or make it so that people have to consume more of a service than is necessary (people are given lower grades than they deserve, forcing them to get remarks or resits etc. This last point isn't really true for exam boards tbh as I doubt there is some conspiracy to force people into resits).
To conclude, I only trust them because I have to and I would trust them more if there was a single, gvernment-run exam board with no commision-payed executives.

[jamescbsmith]

Well I was completely unaware of this problem until I did a lot of past papers and my teacher mentioned something about exam boards being "sneaky".
Sneaky in the sense that perhaps they make the January modules particularly harder so that most will resit for the summer exams - bearing in mind resits equals money for the exam boards

Not necessarily my point of view, but I just wanted to throw this out there

[Ra Ra Ra]

It depends on what they're marking, really. I imagine that it would be far harder to mark an essay than a 3 mark Maths question, as with the former there's no clear definition of what's right or wrong. However, with the latter there's always the chance of human error (which is pretty much inevitable) and the problem of the mark scheme only allowing marks to be awarded if the answer is worded in 'the correct way' (a problem with the essay-based questions, too). When I was doing my GCSEs, I was always far more worried about my essay-based exams than I was about my Science/Maths ones, the reason being that, although you can sail by relatively easy once you learn the technique the mark scheme's looking for, there's always the chance that the examiner just doesn't like the way you've worded it. With GCSE Biology/Chemistry/Physics or Maths, on the other hand, it was very easy to see where and how you'd be awarded marks.

My main problem with exams is the big difference you sometimes come across in terms of remarking. I've heard a story of someone sending a History exam, marked at 62 (a C) back to get it remarked, and having it come back as 94. Stories like this are, of course, few and far between, but it does make me question the validity of exams I thought I'd done well in, but got a below average grade in (and, idiotically, didn't send away to have it remarked). It's a problem, but I have no answer as to how to fix it.

[Minotauro]

Meh, I try not to think about it too much, if I get a terrible grade (not exactly a rarity), it's my fault and no one else's. I dunno, blaming the exam board seems like too easy of an excuse for me, and to be completely honest I hate hearing it.
But again, I try not too think about it too much, so it's clearly not a well thought argument or anything, just my philosophy in regards to this.

EDIT **
I guess I'm saying I have no reason not to trust them, the one time I did think I was screwed over (A2 jan bio) I requested a copy of the paper, and it turned out I just made a lot of silly dumbass mistakes , so yeah I believe my results are usually a fair reflection of the time I spent revising and performance in the exam hall, (in which case I will not be a happy bunny come this 16th)

[Themanwhorules]

(Original post by MinorCatastrophe)
I'mgonna go with no. It surprises me how subjective exam boards are in terms of marking your paper. I'm currently awaiting my A level results, and I'm just praying that the examiner (s) who's marked it hasn't had a bad day!

I know of so many people who'd gotten their grade, sent it off for a remarking and got it back at an entirely different grade. It annoys me how some examiners mess up when marking and can't be bothered to check it, because they don't understand how important that paper is to the candidate, or how much effort they put in to pass, or get into uni.

I just wish an objective source e.g. computer could mark it. That said, an increasing amount of exam papers are marked through a computer.

Yeah the examiner marks it on the computer. The computer don't do it itself lol.

[Helloworld_95]

Depends for what subject and how long the specification has existed. For Maths it's difficult for an examiner to mark it unreliably as the final answer will always be the same. Then for subjects which have been on their specification for a few years I know what sort of answers they're looking for in the mark scheme and so use similar wording to reduce the issue of reliability.

[Zebrajess]

For things like maths and science, yes, because your answers are obviously either right or wrong. But for things like English, I don't. I don't know how true it is, but our teachers are constantly telling us that if you have bad handwriting, examiners will mark you down because they'll only mark the parts they can easily read and ignore everything else. Apparently bad hand writing also puts them in a bad mood.

[Bulbasaur]

(Original post by Zebrajess)
For things like maths and science, yes, because your answers are obviously either right or wrong. But for things like English, I don't. I don't know how true it is, but our teachers are constantly telling us that if you have bad handwriting, examiners will mark you down because they'll only mark the parts they can easily read and ignore everything else. Apparently bad hand writing also puts them in a bad mood.

FML.

Though my geography teacher (he's done some examining) said that examiners are really good at deciphering what people are saying; they do it all day. It's hardly fair to only mark what you can read, I mean a lot of the time even if there's a few words you can't read you get the jist of what theyre saying and its impact on the mark etc. So I'm not really sure if that's true.... but sucks if it is!

[Like a BAWS]

Well in my summer AS philosophy exam, I was initially given a B. Had a remark, boosted 6 marks from B to A.
In my AS History, same story. Awarded a B initially, had a remark and went up 8 marks from a high B to a very safe A grade.

So do I trust exam boards? No. I need AAA to get into my firm, and even though I'm confident in my ability and performances, I have to worry about who/what mood my exam markers were in.

[tesmifami]

That's exactly why I chose Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry and Physics, all entirely practise and knowledge of the unit, if your knowledge is perfect there is no excuse for not getting 100 %. I would have like English because reading is literately my favourite thing in the world but I really want 4 A stars and this combination is a safer way to get it.

[Zebrajess]

(Original post by Bulbasaur)
FML.

Though my geography teacher (he's done some examining) said that examiners are really good at deciphering what people are saying; they do it all day. It's hardly fair to only mark what you can read, I mean a lot of the time even if there's a few words you can't read you get the jist of what theyre saying and its impact on the mark etc. So I'm not really sure if that's true.... but sucks if it is!

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not true, although I suppose it depends on the examiners mood. If they're in a bad mood, trying to decipher your handwriting will annoy them.

I think all essays should be marked twice by two different examiners, to avoid bias due to a mean examiner or a bad mood.

[Bulbasaur]

(Original post by Zebrajess)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not true, although I suppose it depends on the examiners mood. If they're in a bad mood, trying to decipher your handwriting will annoy them.

I think all essays should be marked twice by two different examiners, to avoid bias due to a mean examiner or a bad mood.

Yeah, probably. Then again, call them weird, some people really enjoy examining apparently. So it could cheer them up I think maybe if they were in a bad mood they'd have to compose themselves, I really don't think they'd be silly enough to mark down an able student because of something unrelated to them. I always thought marks went up a lot in remarks because of how vague the marking criteria is.

[TheLightBulb]

I trust them on the surface because they're fair aren't they? They don't know you, they're not going to loo at your paper and go "oh this person did fantastically all year they deserve more marks here you go". Exams are all about how you perform on the day - how your studying takes effect, how you perform under stress and with examiners that evens out the playing field between all of is because we all have our ups and downs but if you work hard you'll get what you deserve.

However, with the grades it is extremely disappointing that the marks aren't added up properly- so many people are depending on just a few marks which could change their life and I do think examiners ought to do more to solve this problem.. I am so scared one of my GCSE grades are going to be affected in August because of one these problems :/


This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

[TheQuietOne]

Asked for a remark and script back for my Jan A2 Edexcel biology paper after the results were miles lower than I felt I'd achieved (I got a D when I felt my performance in the exam was a lot better than that - I'd known what to write for every question, which rarely happens for me in exams). I paid all the fees and requested it way before the deadline. I booked a retake too, with the view that if the remark took me up a grade or two I would cancel the retake.

After weeks and weeks of waiting, I got the remark results on the morning of the retake. They came back unchanged. I would have just accepted this and gone happily to the retake, had I been able to see the script myself and understand where I went wrong. However they never sent me the script I paid for, and when I called to ask they refused point blank to send it or give me a refund.

Still haven't gotten the script after weeks of phone calls and complaints. Not sure what's so difficult about sending it to me.

[Zebrajess]

(Original post by Bulbasaur)
Yeah, probably. Then again, call them weird, some people really enjoy examining apparently. So it could cheer them up I think maybe if they were in a bad mood they'd have to compose themselves, I really don't think they'd be silly enough to mark down an able student because of something unrelated to them. I always thought marks went up a lot in remarks because of how vague the marking criteria is.

I suppose that's true :P
So would more specific marking criteria make marking exams more reliable and the same for all examiners?