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what gets you a 7

I've been hearing conflicting stories about how the IB hands out grades. Please tell me which one is true:

1) Quotas. 3% of students in every subject receive a 7. A fixed percentage receive a 6, and so on. Basically, this means that students are marked on a curve. (ex: if the mean percentage on an IB exam is 37%, then it is possible that someone with a 50% could wind up with a 7. If the mean percentage on a certain exam is 95%, then somebody with a 70% could get a 1.)

2) That descriptor crap. Everybody is marked against those central criterion nonsense. As in, it is theoretically possible for everyone in the world to get a 7; or a 1. This means that students are not being marked against their peers, so, if there is a really tough exam that 90% of the world bomb, then 90% of the world will get a horrible IB grade.

Please tell me which one, if any, is accurate.

Reply 1

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from what i gather, the papers are all marked (remarked, moderated, passed around, laughed at, whatever). the examiners then put them into rough piles, the top 15% or so getting a 7. they look at what these people scored, and roughly decide on that mark as the grade boundary. they then ook over all the papers which are now 6s and 7s, see which are best, whether some deserve to go up and some deserve to go down. the 6 papers are then compared to the next batch below, and so on and so forth until the grade boundaries are decided upon.
so, the mean grade will affect the individual's mark.

however, if enough schools complain about a certain exam or paper, and only a few people get really haigh marks, and the range is huge, the grade boundaries that would have been decided will be brought down.

this is what i have been told, which is why i get so annoyed about bilingual students being entered for B1 languages rather than A2.

and while everyone's whining about syllabuses/i/whatever not being covered for a particular subject....only one of my 6 was covered in full. and that was a language, where the syllabus is pretty much interpreted to mean as little or as much work as the teacher can be bothered with.