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Awarding grades and results

Awarding grades

When all the exam papers in a subject have been marked and the marks have been processed, there is a meeting of the senior examiners involved with the examination. The meeting is led by the chair of examiners for that subject. The main purpose of the meeting is to recommend grade boundaries for the grades (A and E for A level, A, C and F for GCSE) determined by the examiners’ judgement.

The principal considerations in this process should be the maintenance of standards from year to year and across different specifications in the same subject (for example from different awarding bodies). The main activity of the meeting is a close scrutiny of candidates’ work in each component of the examination. The awarders are determining what level of performance on this year’s examination matches the performance that just obtained the same grade last year.

The work is evaluated against archive scripts exemplifying performance from previous years, taking into account any differences in the paper. Awarders are also required to take into account a range of technical and statistical information about the examination.

In practice, the process often establishes a range of marks within which the awarders are unable to decide precisely which mark most closely represents the required standard, a situation known as a zone of uncertainty. The technical data may then be used to help decide upon a single mark as the recommended grade boundary.

Review of grading

Once the awarding committee has decided on its recommendations, these outcomes are used to generate final grades for the subject. The results are then reviewed in two stages.

First, the chief executive meets the chair of examiners to review the proceedings of the awarding meeting. The purpose of this is to take a wider view of the results than is possible for the awarding committee itself. It may for example take into account results in other subjects and results in the same subject from other awarding bodies. This meeting also considers any issues and problems that the awarding committee has raised. The chief executive may agree the recommended boundaries or may agree with the chair that one or more of the recommendations should be adjusted. This will not normally move the boundaries outside the zone of uncertainty established in the meeting.

The second stage of review takes place once the grade boundaries have been finalised. A team of senior examiners meets to re-mark the scripts of any candidates who are considered to be at risk of receiving the wrong result. This may be, for example, because their final grade differs markedly from an estimate provided by the centre. This review normally only looks at the written components because the bulk of coursework is held by the centres rather than the awarding body.

Results issued

Once the second stage of review is completed, the awarding body generates the final results and despatches them to centres, to be passed on to candidates. The awarding bodies also send A level results to UCAS. In addition, the awarding bodies supply a range of additional information, such as grade boundaries and details of candidate performance in each part of the examination, to assist the centres to evaluate their results.

Also see

> A levels

Other websites

> UCAS
> JCQ