English Exam Marking - Problems

I am currently studying Q300 English at MMU (would have prefered to be at Leeds but didnt get an offer) and was wondering if anyone else found that they had to re-sit any of their English exams?

For AS I had three exams and got the grades: A,C,and E which seems really stupid because English is something you are either good at or you aren't. When i resat two of my exams i gained the grades A and B.

Does anyone else think the marking systems are a little messed up?

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Reply 1

Tyler Durden

Kittennffc

Seemed pretty consistent for me. But I have heard of massive variations. Like AAU or something silly. Either you can write good essays or you can't. Simple as.

Reply 2

Kittennffc

Yeah exactly, and by getting AAB it proves that i can write good essays. I mean, when i resat, my A was something like 14 marks from 100% - thats why I don't get why they'd mark it so poorly to start with.

Reply 3

Tyler Durden

You know what might've caused probelms. The Assessment Objectives. AO1 to AO5 etc. They were quite specific and if you missed them you'd get nailed. I don't know. I never read them much, if you write a good essay you'll cover what needs to be covered.

Reply 4

Kittennffc

Yeah, could be because of that. Got the results I needed in the end though!

Reply 5

RachelBabyfrog

Our school is extremely cynical about the quality of marking for English... at least the papers won't be getting marked in India soon like for some other subjects!

Reply 6

Kittennffc

Yeah, our school was aswell. My media studies teacher told us if we got anything less than an A we had to resit, so that was pretty much the whole class, which made us all work like hell. Plus, our school is trying to become an English/Language/Media specialist school so we had to do amazing in pretty much anything that was remotely related to this.

Reply 7

Becca_18star

I got two A's then one c at AS English Literature last summer. The C wasn't terrible or anything but I know I need an A overall for Lancaster and the C meant I was only into the A grade by 3 marks. I sent back for my paper and the examiner had wrote on the bottom...Tries to hard. Or something similarly ridiculous I LMAO, resat it in January and got an A, at 92% :-D Yay xx

Reply 8

Mrs Rickman

ugh assessment objectives *shudders*

Reply 9

Kittennffc

Thats awful! Least you showed him in the end! Did you get into Lancaster?

Reply 10

silence

Kittennffc

Yeah exactly, and by getting AAB it proves that i can write good essays.

it proves that you can, but doesn't prove that you did on the day

Reply 11

Becca_18star

Kittennffc

Thats awful! Least you showed him in the end! Did you get into Lancaster?

Lol yeah. Condtional offer A (In Lit) and BB. So hopefully I'll be going in September...if only I could knuckle down 2 some revision!! :-( :-( :wink:

Reply 12

makeshiftwings

Becca_18star

Lol yeah. Condtional offer A (In Lit) and BB. So hopefully I'll be going in September...if only I could knuckle down 2 some revision!! :-( :-( :wink:

ANOTHER ONE!!! I've met like three people been asked to get ABB for Lancaster, but they only asked me for BBB! I don't get it :frown:

For English exams (AS) I got A, C (coursework) and D. Retook the D paper and got a C, which bumped me up to a B overall (218). The Clockwork Orange paper was a nightmare as I needed the loo the entire way through and they wouldn't let me go :frown:

hopefully I'll do better with Chaucer, Measure for Measure and the synoptic.

Reply 13

Becca_18star

Bah its alright for some!! I heard that Lancaster do weird things like lower grades 4 pple for certain pple, usually just super annoying pple who get 5 A's or something though. i'm chuffed coz I found out they take general studies!! Meep Meep!! GO GO Power Rangers!! Heh :-) :-D

Reply 14

Becca_18star

(Esp as I have no insurance teehee I delcined them) Would rather go into clearing and get another place at Lancaster coz u have to do 3 subjects there so I could if pick up English (and do creative writing as another subject) anyway. WOOOOOOO A (WO)MAN WITH A PLAN!!!! :-) :-D

Are you drunk?

haha

Gah, just dont talk to me about English marking *bangs head against a brick wall*

Reply 18

Jenni_Kitten

Last year for AS our whole centre's marking for Lit. was messed up. I supposedly got a C on one paper and D on the other or something. So they spent ages with the exam board trying to get them remarked for free and stuff...in the end, one of my papers that had been marked 59/90 had gone up to 86/90...now that really is ridiculous. It caused no end of problems with my UCAS form as well because it didn't get remarked until after they were done, and I had to put my AS grade down as a B. Grrr!

Reply 19

ciara

Our school also had major problems with English AS (Edexcel) last year. For 2 of the modules (1 was coursework) the average grade across the year was an A. For the other one however, the average was a D, despite the fact there were 2 different groups studying 2 different novels. :confused:

I got a D and 2 A's as well which was weird cos i thought my D module went fine!

We got them remarked for free, one person's went up by loads and the others were pretty much the same, went up by a few marks or so. I resat the module in January without doing any revision at all (literally), got almost the same question in the exam and got 100%. Almost all of us got an A as well.

It really annoys me that the marking seems to differ so greatly, its not like that for other subjects and it's unfair on English students. I mean I went from a B to a high A overall in English but by then it was too late for universities. I'm seriously worried about this year, no chance for retakes if the markers decide to have an off day :mad: