

	Introduction to the exams process
	Who's who
	The exams process
	Exam marking
	Awarding grades and results
	Access and fairness
	Standards

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Exam marking

Standardisation of markers

Before marking work, markers attend a standardisation meeting to ensure they have a shared understanding of the mark scheme and how it relates to the question paper, and to agree approaches to any problems with the way the paper worked or that have been identified. They also mark a number of common scripts/pieces of work and review their marks.

The meeting is led by the principal examiner for the component. At regular intervals during the marking process samples of examiners’ marking are checked by more senior markers to ensure that they are marking consistently and in line with the agreed standard. If there is evidence that an examiner has not been marking in line with the required standard, then the examiner’s marks are adjusted to bring them into line.

The aim of the whole process is to ensure that the marks awarded are the same as those that the principal examiner would award if he or she had marked every single piece of work.

Standardisation of moderators

Moderators check the consistency of coursework or portfolio marking in centres. They attend a standardisation meeting to ensure that they have a common understanding of the mark scheme and that their marking is consistent and in line with the required standard. In addition they are trained in how to check the marking of teachers in a centre and possible courses of action which may arise from the moderation process.

As with markers, moderators’ work is checked at regular intervals during the moderation process by senior moderators to ensure that their judgments are consistent and in line with the agreed standard.

Marking and moderation of work

Markers mark an allocation of exam scripts, usually covering several centres, and send their marks to the awarding body according to a tight schedule. However, the process of moderating coursework is slightly different. Moderators see a sample of any centre’s work, the size and nature of that sample being defined by the awarding body. The two sets of marks provided by the centre and the moderator provide the evidence for choosing one of three possible courses of action.

If the two sets of marks are closely in line, all of the centre’s marks will be accepted.
If the centre’s marking seems to be consistently out of line with that of the moderator, the centre’s marks will be adjusted to bring them into line with the agreed standard. If this is the chosen course of action, these adjustments are applied to the marks of all the candidates from the centre and not just those in the sample. Adjustments to centres are made both upwards and downwards but, in general, marking is more often generous than severe. As a result, adjustments tend to be downwards rather than upwards. A key principle in the process is that the centre’s original rank order must not be changed by the process, so that candidates with the same mark from the teacher are not differentially affected.
If there is clear evidence from the sample of work that the centre’s rank order is seriously unreliable, the work of the whole centre must be re-marked so that every candidate receives the mark for their work that the moderator believes it merits.