HELP!!!! AS Level Mathematics (Edexcel)

Hi all,

I was wondering about UMS marks, is the actual mark obtained from the exams then converted to the UMS mark or is the grade band where it falls in converted to the UMS mark.

I think I got 59/75 on C1 (B grade), 46 or 45/75 on C2 (C/D) and 44/75 on S1 (D grade) I mean if they were converted directly from the grade bands ie: B = 70 UMS, then it would be 70+60+50 = 180 UMS, which is a C grade overall.

But I was wondering whether the actual raw mark is converted to a UMS mark as that may impact my grade or whether its just sort of the grade UMS that are added together?

Thank you all for your help!

I have no idea what that middle paragraph's all about but that isn't how it works. Your raw mark i.e. the number of marks you get on the paper is directly converted to a UMS mark. Each raw mark out of 75 will equal a different UMS mark out of 100. That's what grade boundaries are for. Grade boundaries (published a day before results day) say how many UMS marks each raw mark is worth. So when you hear someone saying something like "it's 65/75 for an A", they're talking about the RAW mark, as in if you get 65 raw marks you'll get 80 UMS marks which is an A (80%).

The reason exam boards do this is because the difficulty of each exam paper varies so massively that it wouldn't be fair for 58/75 raw marks on a really hard paper to be the same grade as 58/75 raw marks on a really easy paper. The marks you see on your results slip are the UMS marks NOT the raw marks. And UMS grade boundaries NEVER change. It's always:

80% A
70% B
60% C
50% D

And so on...

So, just to clarify, each of your three maths exams will be converted from a raw mark out of 75 to a UMS mark out of 100. Those three UMS marks will then be added up to a total AS mark out of 300. Then the UMS grade boundaries will be (because they never change):
80% A - 240 out of 30070% B - 210 out of 30060% C - 180 out of 30050% D - 150 out of 300

I hope this makes sense. Look out for the RAW grade boundaries when they're published this week and hopefully it will all become clear. Failing that, ask your teacher to explain it to you.

Ahhh okay I sort of understand now, so 59/75 is 2 marks over the grade boundary of a B = roughly 72/74 UMS, 45/75 roughly 58 UMS, and 43/75 = about 56 UMS, which in total would equate to 186 UMS, which would be a C grade, correct?

Are these for AS Summer 2015 exams? How do you know what your raw marks equate to? Grade boundaries aren't out yet...

I honestly wouldn't rely on that too much in case you end up getting disappointed. Like I said, raw grade boundaries change for a reason, perhaps the AS exams were a lot easier this year so the grade boundaries will be higher and you won't end up with a C. I've seen grade boundaries change by as many as 10 raw marks from year to year, so just be patient and wait until the latest ones come out in a few days so you can be more sure of your grade!

P.S. Technically you were along the right lines though, equating each raw mark to its UMS mark then adding the UMS marks up to find out your grade, so do that exact same thing when the grade boundaries come out this week and you'll have a good (although not definite) idea of your grade