Grade boundaries

If grade boundaries drop for an exam - say from 80% to 70% for an A if it was a very hard paper, do all the grade boundaries drop by the same amount for all grades ?

Are there meant to always be a certain number of people who get A/B etc ?

And if (say) more people get A in OCR Core 2 Maths than in Edexcel C2 Maths, what would happen then ?

Reply 1

FretFul

Geokitty

If grade boundaries drop for an exam - say from 80% to 70% for an A if it was a very hard paper, do all the grade boundaries drop by the same amount for all grades ?

Are there meant to always be a certain number of people who get A/B etc ?

And if (say) more people get A in OCR Core 2 Maths than in Edexcel C2 Maths, what would happen then ?

Very sly

Yes, there is a threshold on the amount of people that must get A's.

No, the grade boundaries do not all drop the same percentage. E.g an A in C2 maths in Jan was supposedly 76%, whereas a C was 52%.

Reply 2

DJkG.1

17

FretFul

Very sly

Yes, there is a threshold on the amount of people that must get A's.

No, the grade boundaries do not all drop the same percentage. E.g an A in C2 maths in Jan was supposedly 76%, whereas a C was 52%.

That is totally wrong - there are grade descriptors now which determine what level script should achieve certain grades, and numerical boundaries are assigned to reflect this. The 10%-to-get-grade-A system was abolished over 20 years ago.

But the second part of your answer is correct:

"No, the grade boundaries do not all drop the same percentage."

Reply 3

Geokitty

OP

1

FretFul

Very sly

Yes, there is a threshold on the amount of people that must get A's.

No, the grade boundaries do not all drop the same percentage. E.g an A in C2 maths in Jan was supposedly 76%, whereas a C was 52%.

When you say a 'threshold' on the amount of people that MUST get A, do you mean that (for example) 25% of everyone who does an exam must get A, even if the exam was so hard that the A grade boundary has to drop by a huge % ?

Can an exam ever be classed as TOO difficult ?

Reply 4

McKholin

I believe they determine the A* grade, and then the E grade, then divide up the grades in between accordingly.

So say they decide on A* being 90% and E being 40%, A would then be 80%, B 70% etc.

Reply 5

FretFul

DJkG.1

That is totally wrong - there are grade descriptors now which determine what level script should achieve certain grades, and numerical boundaries are assigned to reflect this. The 10%-to-get-grade-A system was abolished over 20 years ago.

But the second part of your answer is correct:

"No, the grade boundaries do not all drop the same percentage."

"A certain number of candidates must achieve an A grade, in order for the exam paper to be deemed fair."

This is what the chief examiner for Edexcel Geography told me.

Reply 6

Geokitty

OP

1

McKholin

I believe they determine the A* grade, and then the E grade, then divide up the grades in between accordingly.

So say they decide on A* being 90% and E being 40%, A would then be 80%, B 70% etc.

OK, so how do they determine the A* mark? Is it based upon the total number of people who got a certain mark?

At what stage do they make this decision ?

Surely it sometimes happens that an exam is much too hard, so that far fewer people achieve the very high grade. What happens then ?

Reply 7

DJkG.1

17

FretFul

"A certain number of candidates must achieve an A grade, in order for the exam paper to be deemed fair."

This is what the chief examiner for Edexcel Geography told me.

He told you wrong, you misunderstood or you're misquoting.

"They also introduced norm-referenced grading, which meant that only a certain proportion of candidates will achieve certain grades—10% A, 15% B, 10% C, 15% D, 20% E and a further 20% allowed an O-level pass.[9] In 1984, the Secondary Examinations Council advised that grade boundaries should be based on the partition of the mark scale rather than on proportions of candidates, in a move towards a criterion-referenced system. Examiner judgement was to be the basis for the award of grades B and E, with the remaining grades determined by dividing the mark range between these two points into equal intervals."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Level_(UK)

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmeduski/153/15304.htm

This is a really sad argument lol, but there you go. ^^ :smile:

Reply 8

FretFul

DJkG.1

He told you wrong, you misunderstood or you're misquoting.

"They also introduced norm-referenced grading, which meant that only a certain proportion of candidates will achieve certain grades—10% A, 15% B, 10% C, 15% D, 20% E and a further 20% allowed an O-level pass.[9] In 1984, the Secondary Examinations Council advised that grade boundaries should be based on the partition of the mark scale rather than on proportions of candidates, in a move towards a criterion-referenced system. Examiner judgement was to be the basis for the award of grades B and E, with the remaining grades determined by dividing the mark range between these two points into equal intervals."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Level_(UK)

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmeduski/153/15304.htm

This is a really sad argument lol, but there you go. ^^ :smile:

He told me completely wrong then, what an idiot! lol.

Fair enough, I apologize. :smile:

Reply 9

Geokitty

OP

1

I believe (and I don't want to start an argument, & I may be wrong) that AQA Maths (C1, C2 etc) is easier than Edexcel.
So what would happen if this summer, 20% of AQA candidates achieved 80% of the total available marks, but only 10% of Edexcel candidates did? How would that be fair? (Far fewer Edexcel candidates getting an A) ?
Of course I'm plucking figures out of the air here, but can someone explain how they make this fair ?

Reply 10

McKholin

OK from what my maths teacher has said (he is one of the examiners who set the paper and also decide on grades), they do a mixture of :

Looking over the papers themselves and creating a rough estimate of the boundaries; they've seen a lot of papers obviously so can form a rough idea or whether it was harder or easier.

Looking at sample candidate papers, seeing which questions were harder, and whether the paper was harder/easier overall.

Looking at all the candidate results and comparing with previous papers.

That's all I know, I know it's quite vague. But there's definitely no 'set number' of candidates who get a certain grade, because the number of people who gets each grade changes every year. Last year a record number got A*s.

Grade boundaries

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you