Is exam marking fair? Have your say
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Original post by RuairiMorrissey
That defeats the entire point of grade boundaries. You'd then be "5 marks off being 5 marks off" etc.
I agree; there has to be a limit somewhere. I understand it's annoying when you're just a couple of marks off a grade, but that's just life.
With regards to people's stories on here about when examiners have marked incorrectly and their grades have gone up, I think it's terrible how that's allowed to happen... Maybe all papers should be marked twice? I don't know, but it's kind of scared me...
Original post by RuairiMorrissey
That defeats the entire point of grade boundaries. You'd then be "5 marks off being 5 marks off" etc.
Exactly this. Grade Boundaries are set for a reason you can't then move them if you fall on the wrong side.
Original post by Mvine001
I think that if someone is 5 or less marks off a higher grade, for example 5 marks off a C, they should get a C, and not a D.
When I got my GCSE results, the vast majority had been 5- marks off C,B,A and A* (not at the same time, but you know what I mean).
When I got my GCSE results, the vast majority had been 5- marks off C,B,A and A* (not at the same time, but you know what I mean).
Think that is unfair i was 1 mark off an A* in french I received 89.9% I only needed 0.1% for an A* and course work cannot get remarked and i was told all my course work was an A* but it wasn't as the speaking was an A.
Original post by RuairiMorrissey
That defeats the entire point of grade boundaries. You'd then be "5 marks off being 5 marks off" etc.
see, this I think depends on the subject.
If you're 5 marks off a B in say, Physics, because you got 5 questions wrong (say they were 1 mark questions just to keep it easy) then it comes down to not giving the correct answer.
If you're 5 marks off a B in a subject like English Literature, where you have to give an opinion, textual references, interpretations quotations etc. and it's an essay based subject, then you could be 5 marks off because the examiner doesn't agree with the interpretations given, feels that you didn't seem to show you understood one of the themes of the novel, struggled to provide relevant textual evidence for your interpretations, yet another examiner may feel differently as the marks scheme itself is up to a lot more interpretation from the markers. And whilst they will be all given a guideline and samples, it's not as simple as there being one right answer, and one wrong answer.
I do feel like 5 marks is too far off a grade boundary to just award the next grade up though. I can understand one, two or even 3 marks off, but 5 marks just seems like it would be a push to achieve unless the marker had mismarked something or left a question unmarked, rather than interpreting a marks scheme differently.
Original post by Anonymous1502
Think that is unfair i was 1 mark off an A* in french I received 89.9% I only needed 0.1% for an A* and course work cannot get remarked and i was told all my course work was an A* but it wasn't as the speaking was an A.
So you agree with me
Original post by Mvine001
So you agree with me
yes
Original post by Mvine001
I think that if someone is 5 or less marks off a higher grade, for example 5 marks off a C, they should get a C, and not a D.
When I got my GCSE results, the vast majority had been 5- marks off C,B,A and A* (not at the same time, but you know what I mean).
When I got my GCSE results, the vast majority had been 5- marks off C,B,A and A* (not at the same time, but you know what I mean).
What's the point in that? If you don't get the grade, you shouldn't get the grade.
Papers should be pushed through several examiners and at the end of the day, if the examiners in general feel as though the person at hand deserves the mark and understood and answered the question correctly, even if it were through fluke or some ill-found method, so be it. I also think that there should be more marks given for extenuating circumstance, and that there should be more option for the exam to be taken in a smaller room than some large exam hall. For my AS exams I had a panic attack in one of my exams (I had never been submitted to such a large exam, and have always felt a little bit worrisome of large amounts of people; panic attack ahoy and I got 20% on my exam, besides scoring over 90% on the other exam for my AS; I was denied access because I had no note from a psychiatrist, and getting one would have taken too long.
I realise that last point was partly my fault, but forcing someone to have panic attacks just to get through an exam is a little bit harsh.
I realise that last point was partly my fault, but forcing someone to have panic attacks just to get through an exam is a little bit harsh.
Original post by Callicious
Papers should be pushed through several examiners and at the end of the day, if the examiners in general feel as though the person at hand deserves the mark and understood and answered the question correctly, even if it were through fluke or some ill-found method, so be it. I also think that there should be more marks given for extenuating circumstance, and that there should be more option for the exam to be taken in a smaller room than some large exam hall. For my AS exams I had a panic attack in one of my exams (I had never been submitted to such a large exam, and have always felt a little bit worrisome of large amounts of people; panic attack ahoy and I got 20% on my exam, besides scoring over 90% on the other exam for my AS; I was denied access because I had no note from a psychiatrist, and getting one would have taken too long.
I realise that last point was partly my fault, but forcing someone to have panic attacks just to get through an exam is a little bit harsh.
I realise that last point was partly my fault, but forcing someone to have panic attacks just to get through an exam is a little bit harsh.
Is there no other people in your year who take exams in a separate room? There's loads in mine for various reasons like extra time, rest breaks ect
There's a big drama at my school at the moment relating to marks on a particular question on the most recent AQA philosophy AS level paper. On this one particular 9 mark question I got 8 out of 9. A girl in my class, who we can safely assume knew more of the stuff than me when she went into the exam because she never sodding stops revising, got 3 out of 9. When she got the paper remarked her mark on the question I'm on about didn't change.
The department bought both of our papers back off the exam board, and anybody that's seen both my paper and hers, including the philosophy teacher, has testified that me and her wrote pretty much exactly the same thing, and it wasn't wildly different from another person in the year who got 9 out of 9.
The entire paper didn't have many marks available, were she to have got 8 or 9 on that question she would've likely got an A, or at least a much higher B. Either she's been grossly under-marked by 5 or 6 marks twice, or I've been given 5 marks more than I should've. How do you manage to mess up that badly?
The department bought both of our papers back off the exam board, and anybody that's seen both my paper and hers, including the philosophy teacher, has testified that me and her wrote pretty much exactly the same thing, and it wasn't wildly different from another person in the year who got 9 out of 9.
The entire paper didn't have many marks available, were she to have got 8 or 9 on that question she would've likely got an A, or at least a much higher B. Either she's been grossly under-marked by 5 or 6 marks twice, or I've been given 5 marks more than I should've. How do you manage to mess up that badly?
I agree all these exam boards is nonesense we should all sit the same paper as the difference between A-A* is all about luck and sitting the right paper and the difficulty varies between exam boards it is unfair to compare two different students who did two different papers as if they both took the same ones the results could differ tremendously.
The amount of mistakes made in marking essays when I bought my papers back was ridiculous, think essays should have to be marked my multiple examiners and then an average score found.
It definitely is not: a girl in my class was 7 marks off an A and appealed and got it changed to an A. Wtf how can 7 marks just be awarded out of the blue. Was the marker hungover ? Getting laid at the time ? Who knows.
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Original post by RossB1702
It definitely is not: a girl in my class was 7 marks off an A and appealed and got it changed to an A. Wtf how can 7 marks just be awarded out of the blue. Was the marker hungover ? Getting laid at the time ? Who knows.
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I was 10 marks off an A* for GCSE and went up 9.
The marking system can never been fair.
Examiners get paid by how many scripts they can mark in a certain amount of time. Most of them will skim through answers and can miss or unfairly award marks.
Some people will get their scripts marked by a nice examiner and some are not as fortunate. It may not make a massive difference in raw marks, but a few marks can result in a change of grade.
There is so much subjectivity, especially in essay based subjects like English, History etc, they are so heavily dependent on what the individual examiner believes is a 'good answer'. An A* answer to one examiner might just be an A to another.
Examiners get paid by how many scripts they can mark in a certain amount of time. Most of them will skim through answers and can miss or unfairly award marks.
Some people will get their scripts marked by a nice examiner and some are not as fortunate. It may not make a massive difference in raw marks, but a few marks can result in a change of grade.
There is so much subjectivity, especially in essay based subjects like English, History etc, they are so heavily dependent on what the individual examiner believes is a 'good answer'. An A* answer to one examiner might just be an A to another.
Maybe have standards for markers - so they’re not hungover and constantly just skimming over papers.
Business. Exam boards are businesses at the end of the day.
In the exam season just gone, I got a U in my English lit paper (8/80 raw marks apparently) although my coursework was kept at A* and my AS grade was an A. Got it remarked and got an A. Held an offer for Kings, safe to say this monumental error in marking totally screwed everything up for me. I think that English lit is so subjective and what one examiner thinks is credible another may not. It actually bewilders me how I was awarded a U - I had written over 7 pages, a D/E therefore would have been more realistic.
I really, really want to see improvements to marking coursework based subjects.
The marking criteria for coursework is usually terrible, making it difficult for students to understand them and making them very reliant on their teachers. My art teacher and the supervisor for my EPQ both told me that I could stop working early because the work I'd done already would almost guarantee me an A*, but I got a B in the end for both subjects. Had I known there was something to improve on, I would have done it. Looking at the marking criteria, I still don't know what I did wrong. If you are relying on the input of teachers, and the teachers give you input which doesn't correspond to the grades the examiner gives, then I think this should be considered somehow.
Also, in both situations, it was impossible to get a remark without the permission of the whole cohort. This is not practical in the real world, and it feels like the exam boards are creating ridiculous remarking criteria which are impossible to fulfil because they can't be bothered to do remarks.
The marking criteria for coursework is usually terrible, making it difficult for students to understand them and making them very reliant on their teachers. My art teacher and the supervisor for my EPQ both told me that I could stop working early because the work I'd done already would almost guarantee me an A*, but I got a B in the end for both subjects. Had I known there was something to improve on, I would have done it. Looking at the marking criteria, I still don't know what I did wrong. If you are relying on the input of teachers, and the teachers give you input which doesn't correspond to the grades the examiner gives, then I think this should be considered somehow.
Also, in both situations, it was impossible to get a remark without the permission of the whole cohort. This is not practical in the real world, and it feels like the exam boards are creating ridiculous remarking criteria which are impossible to fulfil because they can't be bothered to do remarks.
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