GCSE results 2012: grades drop for first time in history.

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Originally Posted by Kardan

Some exam boards may mark down, I know I can certainly be marked down in Maths at University, although Uni exam boards are individual to each University and so are different to GCSE boards.

And imagine it like this, I took my Maths GCSE exam in 2008, and imagine it was a super hard paper, but I got the best in my class, and at 70% I got an A*

Imagine Bob took his Maths GCSE exam in 2012, and imagine it was super easy, he got 73% but everyone in his class got higher than him. Bob would get a B for example.

Of course it's not based on everyone in the class, but everyone that took the exam nationally.

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I'm sort of understanding it now :P Does it always have to be this confusing in England? (Or am I literally clueless :().

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Originally Posted by Kardan

There is no such thing as "strict marking", exams are marked pretty much the same each year, it's the grade boundaries that make it "harsh". The grade boundaries are changed based on how well people did in that years exam, this means they can only decide the grade boundary once they know everyone's results.

They literally get numbers of how many people scored each mark, and go, "Ok, the 12,593 people that got 45/60 and above can have an A..."

It's impossible for them to announce grade boundaries before the exam.

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Not strictly true. In English which is what was marked harshly anyway, grades are fixed based upon a level marking system similar to certain questions in geo. Therefore what's obviously happened is by strict.marking they have been giving lower tiers then they should have been for certzin .

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Originally Posted by Pipette

Not strictly true. In English which is what was marked harshly anyway, grades are fixed based upon a level marking system similar to certain questions in geo. Therefore what's obviously happened is by strict.marking they have been giving lower tiers then they should have been for certzin .

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Care to explain what you mean? How are questions for geography? Last time I did geography was my geography GCSE which was mainly 'Label these features of a river [5]' and 'Describe the influences of Coca Cola in Brazil [15]'? Pretty sure I'm misunderstanding what you are saying :P

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Originally Posted by Kardan

Care to explain what you mean? How are questions for geography? Last time I did geography was my geography GCSE which was mainly 'Label these features of a river [5]' and 'Describe the influences of Coca Cola in Brazil [15]'? Pretty sure I'm misunderstanding what you are saying :P

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Level marking is used in geo questions of 6 or 8 marks. In other words a standard of answer is set for each tier and a similar thing is done for English. Each grade has a detailed descrption of the standard of writing, etc. It is evident to see it has been marked harsh if u then look at mocks or even just a mark scheme after u took, as I'm sure warren would agree also having taken the exams. Taking my example grades don't drop two grades in a unit randomly from mock to paper when u felt u did even better in the paper, and have studied the marking scheme to know what you need for a*, without being marked harshly tbh.

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Originally Posted by Pipette

Level marking is used in geo questions of 6 or 8 marks. In other words a standard of answer is set for each tier and a similar thing is done for English. Each grade has a detailed descrption of the standard of writing, etc. It is evident to see it has been marked harsh if u then look at mocks or even just a mark scheme after u took, as I'm sure warren would agree also having taken the exams. Taking my example grades don't drop two grades in a unit randomly from mock to paper when u felt u did even better in the paper, and have studied the marking scheme to know what you need for a*, without being marked harshly tbh.

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As in, English exams have different tiers of example of answers. Such as

No structure, no clear context etc. 0-2 marks
Slight structure and context but no clear understanding 2-5 marks
etc. etc.
Fully composed structure, clear and concise context 18-20 marks?

If this is what you mean, English exams have been like this for a while, my Chemistry A-Levels also had this formatting. What I don't understand is how people can say they've been marked harshly when all they have to go on is their results, at least give people time to get their exam papers back so they can say they've been harshly marked.

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Originally Posted by Kardan

As in, English exams have different tiers of example of answers. Such as

No structure, no clear context etc. 0-2 marks
Slight structure and context but no clear understanding 2-5 marks
etc. etc.
Fully composed structure, clear and concise context 18-20 marks?

If this is what you mean, English exams have been like this for a while, my Chemistry A-Levels also had this formatting. What I don't understand is how people can say they've been marked harshly when all they have to go on is their results, at least give people time to get their exam papers back so they can say they've been harshly marked.

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They are a lot more detailed than that tho, and its like all stuff thats debatable, but the way we can tell its harsh is because of this detail tbh. Ofc getting the scripts back would be able to deny/prove this but you can tell based upon how you wrote on the day tbh, but the fact is you can write to the definition itself, and therefore know what your gonna get before its even been marked, so if its lower you know its harsh realy.

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Originally Posted by Pipette

They are a lot more detailed than that tho, and its like all stuff thats debatable, but the way we can tell its harsh is because of this detail tbh. Ofc getting the scripts back would be able to deny/prove this but you can tell based upon how you wrote on the day tbh, but the fact is you can write to the definition itself, and therefore know what your gonna get before its even been marked, so if its lower you know its harsh realy.

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Trust me, it's foolish to know that you're going to get a specific grade in an exam in one which does not have definite correct answers, such as English.

For example in Maths or Physics, I knew I did well in an exaam, because many questions say 'Show that the answer is 3.672' for example. In Chemistry, I was clueless as to what grades I would recieve, because of all the long word based essay-like questions.

I mean, you can say that you've followed the guidelines, but at the end of the day, it's the examiners that mark them, and the majority of them have had 20+ years of experience of teaching and marking, the large majority of the time they know what they're doing.

I honestly don't see why everyone is complaining about the results going down, it was going to happen sooner or later, and the exam boards have explained that nothing has drastically changed.

Seriously, you're saying that examiners have decided that this year they will be harsh with the marking, that's just not the case. They do it every year, twice a year and marks get double and triple checked.

I looked around the net for a few statistics, and English C grades and above have fallen by a percent, but because more people have took the exam, the amount of people that have gotten C grades have only fallen by 4,000 people out of the 650,000 or so that took the exam.

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Originally Posted by Kardan

Trust me, it's foolish to know that you're going to get a specific grade in an exam in one which does not have definite correct answers, such as English.

For example in Maths or Physics, I knew I did well in an exaam, because many questions say 'Show that the answer is 3.672' for example. In Chemistry, I was clueless as to what grades I would recieve, because of all the long word based essay-like questions.

I mean, you can say that you've followed the guidelines, but at the end of the day, it's the examiners that mark them, and the majority of them have had 20+ years of experience of teaching and marking, the large majority of the time they know what they're doing.

I honestly don't see why everyone is complaining about the results going down, it was going to happen sooner or later, and the exam boards have explained that nothing has drastically changed.

Seriously, you're saying that examiners have decided that this year they will be harsh with the marking, that's just not the case. They do it every year, twice a year and marks get double and triple checked.

I looked around the net for a few statistics, and English C grades and above have fallen by a percent, but because more people have took the exam, the amount of people that have gotten C grades have only fallen by 4,000 people out of the 650,000 or so that took the exam.

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no more people hve not taken the exam. 1996 had teh lowest birth rate for a very long time, and anyway quite frankly the conspiracy theories to do with michael gove are very believable, its like utter ** that he hasnt anything to do with it tbh.

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Originally Posted by Pipette

no more people hve not taken the exam. 1996 had teh lowest birth rate for a very long time, and anyway quite frankly the conspiracy theories to do with michael gove are very believable, its like utter ** that he hasnt anything to do with it tbh.

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What conspiracy theories, I have no idea what your on about and i was born in 1996. Tell me or ill get google :P

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Originally Posted by santa-my-nana

What conspiracy theories, I have no idea what your on about and i was born in 1996. Tell me or ill get google :P

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that the examiners have been marking harshly because the goverment is saying that gcses are becoming too easy etc ... and ofc theres another one that michael gove is involved in it all really ;p