Just received my AS exam script and I'm shocked...

Lol, so yeah, I got back my English AS exam script today and it hit me hard.

Initially I got 60 marks, which is an A... it got moderated and I lost 20 marks. That is why I didn't get an A... when I was on course to do so. I didn't get a remark because I didn't have the script, I just received it from my teacher today

I really want to complain, or at least voice a concern or something..
Losing 20 marks is disgusting, that's literally 2 grades.

What I'm concerned about is that maybe people across the nation have gotten lower/higher than they were supposed to.

Anyone in a similar position to me or have any advice as to what I can do about this?

I know it looks like you 'lost' 20 marks, but in reality... You didn't. Your paper was marked too generously initially and a more senior examiner corrected this. Would you be saying it was "disgusting" if you had been moderated up 20 marks?

Lol, so yeah, I got back my English AS exam script today and it hit me hard.

Initially I got 60 marks, which is an A... it got moderated and I lost 20 marks. That is why I didn't get an A... when I was on course to do so. I didn't get a remark because I didn't have the script, I just received it from my teacher today

I really want to complain, or at least voice a concern or something..
Losing 20 marks is disgusting, that's literally 2 grades.

What I'm concerned about is that maybe people across the nation have gotten lower/higher than they were supposed to.

Anyone in a similar position to me or have any advice as to what I can do about this?

I understand why you're annoyed. The fact that it's even possible for two examiners to disagree by 20 marks shows that there's something really seriously wrong with the marking system. In my GCSE Geography class last year, about half the class had their grades changed under moderation (including one person by 3 grades). Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's much we can do. The education system is crap, but that doesn't really help you right now. I'm sorry ):

Thanks for understanding where I'm coming from, that's exactly why I'm fuming.
How can the difference be so great?!

Is it not worth giving them a call to voice a complaint?
I really want them to understand the gravity of this mistake..

This education system -_-

Thanks for understanding where I'm coming from, that's exactly why I'm fuming.
How can the difference be so great?!

Is it not worth giving them a call to voice a complaint?
I really want them to understand the gravity of this mistake..

This education system -_-

You can definitely give them a call - there's nothing to lose - but don't get your hopes up. Almost certainly, nothing is going to change. You've just got to grit your teeth and try to not let this happen again :/ Good luck.

How is the education system to blame here? What solution do you propose?

Perhaps... PERHAPS, not hire examiners like they are volunteers for Sunday church.

This is a huge role to play...

Or PERHAPS change this system so the **** that's lying about being sick doesn't get a higher mark than he's supposed to.

OR MAYBE LEARN HOW TO MARK AN ENGLISH PAPER?!

Thanks, I just can't stop wondering 'what if I WASN'T moderated?' would I be holding a grade that wasn't mine? Would I ever know I received a false grade? >_<

And my board is AQA I think they've had marking problems before.

At GCSE I received A*A* for English litlang, while the whole class scraped Cs and a few Ds these were people who had a reputation for being great at English and were top set..
They got remarks and about 8 people got bumped up to As, the majority going up to Bs.. This was also AQA english

It's just now I'm having doubts whether any of my grades are proper and whether the same will occur at A2.

Of course, the reason why it's so wrong is because 20 marks is a HUGE gap.

This is people's lives they are messing with, obviously not qualified so why is anyone like that touching my paper?
It's just not fair, no one else in the school got it moderated and they were marked by the same 'generous' person..

Perhaps... PERHAPS, not hire examiners like they are volunteers for Sunday church.

This is a huge role to play...

Or PERHAPS change this system so the **** that's lying about being sick doesn't get a higher mark than he's supposed to.

OR MAYBE LEARN HOW TO MARK AN ENGLISH PAPER?!

I don't know if this was in reply to me or not, but:

AQA have serious marking problems. I'm not surprised at your situation now, as on the AQA Eng Lit spec there have been so many stories similar to yours. If you take a look around threads ahout this, you'll see that there have been people on here who have, after remarks, been marked up from E grades to B grades. It's ridiculous, and scary because we as students have literally no control over anything. That's the thing which a subject like English, subjectivity can be a good thing at times but it's mostly bad, very bad when it comes to exams. It's really worrying - I'm on AQA myself and though I achieved full marks at AS, I'm really worried about how A2 will go down.

As for GCSEs, I don't remember what the rest of my class got but I remember by controlled assessment being marked down from an A* to a B, meaning that my overall grade went down from an A* to an A. It really is gutting, I wonder how long AQA will continue like this

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The problem is there's a shortage of examiners, so they can't afford to have the highest of standards, and even the ones who are good have too many papers to mark. This leads to mistakes - a mistake that has, in this case, been corrected by a more senior examiner. A sample of papers from your school / that particular examiner will probably have been taken, and there were a sufficiently low number of errors to clear the rest of them (just because they made a mistake in yours, that doesn't mean they made a mistake with them all). Unfortunately, there will be some people who got a higher/lower grade than they deserved, whether because of mistakes or because of the fact that English is a very subjective subject. Rest assured though, if your paper was moderated, you can be reasonably certain your grade was fair.




i have never heard such ****e in my life. The MAXIMUM extra UMS you can get for extenuating circumstances is 5%, and even that's only for the death of a first-degree relative during the exam period. Evidence is required to get any extra marks. case in point: my mum was having chemotherapy last summer, yet the exam board decided my sister didn't deserve special consideration. She was one mark off an A* in English - anything extra would have bumped her up from an A.

I got an A in my PE GCSE two years ago in very dodgy circumstances... Despite not getting below an A in any mocks, I got a low C in the exam, when scraping a B would have been enough to get me an A*. PE isn't a subjective subject like English either, so I was very shocked. I asked about a remark, but because I chose to go to college instead of my school's sixth form, my teacher wasn't too concerned about it, dawdled as a result and I missed the deadline. Since I applied to universities that place a lot of emphasis on number/percentage of A*s at GCSE when short listing for interview, this wasn't an exactly insignificant matter.I got over it, because as you grow up that's what you have to do.

The problem is there's a shortage of examiners, so they can't afford to have the highest of standards, and even the ones who are good have too many papers to mark. This leads to mistakes - a mistake that has, in this case, been corrected by a more senior examiner. A sample of papers from your school / that particular examiner will probably have been taken, and there were a sufficiently low number of errors to clear the rest of them (just because they made a mistake in yours, that doesn't mean they made a mistake with them all). Unfortunately, there will be some people who got a higher/lower grade than they deserved, whether because of mistakes or because of the fact that English is a very subjective subject. Rest assured though, if your paper was moderated, you can be reasonably certain your grade was fair.




i have never heard such ****e in my life. The MAXIMUM extra UMS you can get for extenuating circumstances is 5%, and even that's only for the death of a first-degree relative during the exam period. Evidence is required to get any extra marks. case in point: my mum was having chemotherapy last summer, yet the exam board decided my sister didn't deserve special consideration. She was one mark off an A* in English - anything extra would have bumped her up from an A.

I got an A in my PE GCSE two years ago in very dodgy circumstances... Despite not getting below an A in any mocks, I got a low C in the exam, when scraping a B would have been enough to get me an A*. PE isn't a subjective subject like English either, so I was very shocked. I asked about a remark, but because I chose to go to college instead of my school's sixth form, my teacher wasn't too concerned about it, dawdled as a result and I missed the deadline. Since I applied to universities that place a lot of emphasis on number/percentage of A*s at GCSE when short listing for interview, this wasn't an exactly insignificant matter. I got over it, because as you grow up that's what you have to do.

This is a serious problem and you're not helping.