The Student Room Group

a level lit - don't trust my teacher's marking!!

I moved to a new school for Sixth Form (I'm in y12 now) so I am not very well acquainted with the teachers and their styles of marking. We have done a few essays so far, and I wasn't very convinced by any of mine. Some of them were in exam conditions, some of them at home. I don't think my writing style has matured much from GCSE. However, I have been getting pretty high scores, from 22/25 to 24/25 generally. I am not happy about this, because I think the teachers mark too liberally. I'm worried that this will continue and I will get a nasty shock on results day (or when they are marked externally). I don't know much about the school and what kind of grades lit students get in their final exams, and I recognise that these are professionals that have been doing this job for years. Still - I don't trust them!! Is there anything that I should/could do??

Reply 1

Original post
by ejemonie
I moved to a new school for Sixth Form (I'm in y12 now) so I am not very well acquainted with the teachers and their styles of marking. We have done a few essays so far, and I wasn't very convinced by any of mine. Some of them were in exam conditions, some of them at home. I don't think my writing style has matured much from GCSE. However, I have been getting pretty high scores, from 22/25 to 24/25 generally. I am not happy about this, because I think the teachers mark too liberally. I'm worried that this will continue and I will get a nasty shock on results day (or when they are marked externally). I don't know much about the school and what kind of grades lit students get in their final exams, and I recognise that these are professionals that have been doing this job for years. Still - I don't trust them!! Is there anything that I should/could do??


Hey, I’m in Year 13 and do English Lit too.

The problem with English is that it’s very subjective - what one teacher may mark as a 23 or 24/25, another may mark as 16/25. If it’s possible, I recommend speaking to your teacher and raising the concern, or maybe just ask for them to be more restrictive with your marking. If that’s not possible, maybe consult a third party and ask them to mark it. At the end of the day though, you are in Year 12. The year is not even a third of the way through, and you shouldn’t be worrying about messing up on results day which is a year and 8 months away for you. Even still, even if your teacher is being lenient with your mark, you must still be doing well to be getting 23-24/25 regardless.

As long as you make sure you include wider reading, critics, analysis, etc. into your essays, you’ll be fine.

Reply 2

Original post
by owenmcauliffe
Hey, I’m in Year 13 and do English Lit too.
The problem with English is that it’s very subjective - what one teacher may mark as a 23 or 24/25, another may mark as 16/25. If it’s possible, I recommend speaking to your teacher and raising the concern, or maybe just ask for them to be more restrictive with your marking. If that’s not possible, maybe consult a third party and ask them to mark it. At the end of the day though, you are in Year 12. The year is not even a third of the way through, and you shouldn’t be worrying about messing up on results day which is a year and 8 months away for you. Even still, even if your teacher is being lenient with your mark, you must still be doing well to be getting 23-24/25 regardless.
As long as you make sure you include wider reading, critics, analysis, etc. into your essays, you’ll be fine.

Hey, thanks for responding. I'm a bit scared of my teacher so I probably won't confront her about it, but I'm going to ask my cousin who is at uni studying English for a second opinion, thanks for the advice 🙂

Quick Reply

How The Student Room is moderated

To keep The Student Room safe for everyone, we moderate posts that are added to the site.