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Exam board chief Andrew Hall Q&A session: Thursday 25 July at 3.30pm

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Hi Andrew, I wanted to ask: why is it that when some papers are remarked, there are sometimes significant changes in the marks awarded to students, sometimes even in papers that do not always involve qualitative methods of answering. Thank you....

Reply 61

Jatz07

Hi Andrew,

I would like to ask why is it with AQA GCSE Sociology and Psychology Grade Boundaries are so very high?

I mean obviously if the paper is easier the boundaries are higher but I did my GCSE Sociology Exam this year and noticed in Jan 2013 it was 77/90 for A* which is very high. Surely, ok if the paper is easier boundaries should be higher but why a jump of 8-9 marks in less than a year?

Also, some of the questions are not in the specification e.g. describe two ways of a means test. Why do AQA do this? Also what percentage of the population is allowed to achieve an A*? You must have a cut off points?

Why are the examiners so strict in marking English Language papers compared to previous years? Is it because more students are doing well or you want to raise standards due to pressure implied by Michael Gove.

Has AQA become stricter in marking due to the pressure by Michael Gove to make education more rigorous? I have noticed ever since Mr. Gove started the reforms AQA has become very strict and it affects us all.

Regards,
Jatz

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 62

ladynova

Andrew, Do you have any faith in Michael Gove's reforms? Especially his idea of focusing more on academia and not art subjects? How do we expect our arts and media to flourish which is at the centre of british culture if we just remove it from the GCSE curriculum?

Reply 63

Mr Inquisitive

Original post by electriic_ink

What's the point in having multiple exam boards? Surely by allowing exam boards to compete for schools' business, there's an incentive for them to produce easier and easier exams.

How? In the long-term and final analysis, comparatively easier exams are useless for schools. The education system requires rigour.

It's better to have multiple exam boards so that there is accountability, choice, and competition.

Reply 64

ekf241

Yes, I would also like to know how AQA ensures that an examiner's mood does not reflect the mark they award to essay subjects such as English Literature?

Also, how can AQA (or any exam board) ensure synchronicity, if required, across all scripts from the one centre when it is HIGHLY likely that the majority of candidates would score similarly? For example, I sat an English paper and around 50% scored A grades, the other 50% scored around C and D grades. Fair enough, there was one E grade which may have been an accurate reflection for that particular candidate, but we were all taught at an equally high level and the consistent grades we achieved in mocks did not reflect the terribly inconsistent marks achieved in the real exam. I, for one, felt that the scripts were either sent to 2 different examiners who were on 2 different wave lengths or it was down to the mood of the examiner. Either way, it was horribly unfair.

Reply 65

TheGeneral95

Original post by Matt_dragon

Hello Andrew

AS and A2 Biology exams this year had way too many ''suggest'' type of questions which were partly irrelevant to the actual course specification. I am incredibly happy that AQA Scientists have found a cure for AIDS, but can you please make sure that the exams are actually based on the legit course specification next year considering we only get one attempt? Thank you.

So true !
Cure for aids ? :0

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Reply 66

Matt_dragon

Original post by TheGeneral95

So true !
Cure for aids ? :0

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Haha, BIOL5 paper had some pretty weird **** in it.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 67

H0PEL3SS

Hi Andrew,
How are the GCSE english language papers marked? Is the entirety of a candidate's answer booklet marked by one person at a time, or are the questions split up and divided between examiners? (i.e 1 examiner gets a set of Q5s while another gets the Q1s etc)

Reply 68

JackHLi

Why does your exam board (AQA) have a much higher amount of completely unacceptable mistakes in exams? Ambiguous questions and incorrect questions are rife throughout your exams. For a particular example, though there are many, the chemistry unit 5 exam in the summer of 2012. It varied wildly off the specification, testing more on the ability to remember random statistics such as colors rather than any actual understanding of chemistry and was incredibly poorly written. The question on bond angles was completely ambiguous as to whether it wanted the angle between two water molecules or the angle of the water molecule's bond. Also multiple questions where you had to refer to a table on a previous page continually to complete a large question, taking a long time to keep flicking the page back and forth on a paper that was already too long for the time period. The paper was littered with similar very basic mistakes that could of been picked up without ever of even studying chemistry. There was also most importantly an impossible question, where the 'answer' was that mass had just appeared out of nothing after a chemical reaction.

The more important part however was you do not take responsibility for the mistakes you have made, thousands of students complained. However you gave a response to the news paper which completely ignored there were issues on the paper other than the impossible question, and for the impossible question you replied "We accept it would have been better to use a different ratio" "it has clearly cause confusion for some" "Although the question can still be answered" "the results will not be affected"

This has happened for many exam papers of yours, e.g. A biology paper had similar issues, it is incredibly easy to look up the amount of exams you have messed up and see that it is much higher than other exam boards.

Reply 69

Sannn

How did you decide how the A2 AQA Psychology papers are marked? Unit 3 is not really an exam at all - there is no application at all, merely a memory test. I don't think is a fair representation of what we've learned. The exam simply tests how fast you can write, along with your cramming ability. Do you think the Psychology A level on the whole is fair? Most of it (with the exception of a segment of unit 4, research methods) appears to be pure memorization, with no application. For someone like me who hopes to study the discipline at uni, I found the A level to be of little to no help.

If you were to make changes, what would you change?

Reply 70

Infinity_4652

Hi andrew!

I've heard that all the exam boards will soon becoming together to make one board.
1) When will this happen?
2)What will this new board be called?
3) Other than all of our exams being from one board, what will be different for us as students?
Will the specifications and exams papers have to be remade?

Thanks! Sorry if you find my question is confusing :biggrin:

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 71

itsConnor_

What would happen if I used a blue pen for an entire exam? Would it be marked?

Reply 72

scindapsus95

Hello Andrew - my question is how do exam paper writers decide how much time to allocate for a question paper?

I ask this because I'm well aware of people at my college applying for extra time who do not 'officially' need it (i.e. they do not have an actual medical reason for having extra time), and that raises the question of whether sufficient time is given to students to answer a question paper. That's why I'm wondering how examiners decide how much time people should have to fully answer the questions set in the first place. Is there some kind of pilot exam before the first paper for a subject is released, or is it simply predicted how long people should take to respond?

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 73

SirMasterKey

If you could only make one policy change regarding education what would it be and why?

Reply 74

SharminaSyeda

Why are the A level papers so impossible and different in comparison to the past papers? Chemistry is a prime example, for example in the AS unit 2 summer paper you included a calculation we hadn't learnt and this did not follow the pattern of old past papers, how are we meant to learn from this? Nor was it included in textbooks too

Reply 75

Matt_dragon

Original post by leannesagoodman

This is a very good question indeed. Most exams are 1.5hrs, but I think the time should be significantly extended, particularly for sciences and heavy essay based exams. I'd say 2 hours and 15 minutes would be more reasonable.

Reply 76

Matt_dragon

Original post by SharminaSyeda

Hi! I did CHEM2 as well, what calculation was it as I don't quite remember? :smile:

Reply 77

Ali98

Since everyone has access to Internet, and more and more countries are allowing students for exams, when do you think this country will offer Internet to help student in exams?

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Reply 78

scindapsus95

Original post by Matt_dragon

Thanks! This timing thing is the problem I have. I mean, in one of the Psychology exams I did this year, you had 1 hour 30 minutes to write three essays. For me, that wasn't enough to get out all the points I wanted to write. I found it was more a struggle against time than a recall issue, and that meant I may have lost marks come results day. So, I don't know whether the examiners have proven that it's possible to answer every question on an exam paper fully in the time they've allocated, or whether they just think that a certain amount of time will be enough.

It's made me curious to say the least!