Results from GCSE remarks?

Happy Lurker. The 9 mark drop was over two papers November 17 series.

Original grade was 3 and remained so as the grade boundaries are much wider below the desired 'pass' grade 4. 20 marks between 1 - 2 - 3; 10 marks between 4 -5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9.

Thomassinaa - had she not done any practice/past/sample papers as they would be the same format and she should have known how many questions she needed to be doing. A review is to check what is there has been graded correctly and added correctly. Special considerqtion needs to be asked for at the time of the exam - eg for illness, bereavement etc. Sorry to be harsh but it is not available for a candidate who just messed up in the day.

Yes, I saw that too but what I wondered was whether the drop was the result a remark of both papers? I think the AQA Eng Lang papers are worth 80 marks each, so effectively a 10 mark (or 9 mark drop in the case you mentioned @tararabumdeay) from an available 180 marks? Or was the drop just from the remark of one paper?

@Thomasinaa If she's 1 Mark into her grade boundary, I really wouldn't ask for a review of marking. They make it very explicit that marks can go down so I'd be concerned about that as she's only just into the 6 grade.

Very pleased for those whose DC have gone up a grade through remarks but just warning that it's by no means a given.

There won't be any consideration given for not seeing questions.

HappyLurker there is a 10 point drop thisbyear above which lead to dropping down a grade

My Dd was predicted a high grade in RE half GCSE. But apparently some questions were printed at the back of the bundle, after some spare sheets. She had lots of time, but only noticed these at the last minute, only time to scribble a couple of lines. Several other pupils missed them completely. Dd v upset, as really needed a high grade. She got a 6, 1 point off a 5. Was predicted an 8 or 9. Would a review be likely to sympathise and put her up a grade?

@oneteen I wasn't aware of that? Will remember for next year....thanks

Was the 9 mark decrease last year across the 2 English Lang AQA papers @tararabumdeay? Quite a big drop!

I'd like to think that the schools would review the marking on Edexcel papers (because they can access the exam papers) before asking for the parents to pay for a review ...its harder for AQA.

This makes very interesting reading as our DD was 1 mark off the next grade boundary for AQA RS, so we're going for a review of marking. It's one of her A level subjects so a potentially higher GCSE grade will look better.

DD had her 3 maths papers remarked as she was one point off the next grade. We thought it was reasonable to think one point could be found across three papers, but it came back the same. Exam board was Ed Excel.

AQA English Language. Five back all no change in points awarded. Six more to come. The ones we've got have taken about 10 days.

Last year one came back 12 marks increase and another 9 marks decrease.

All the above borderline grade 3/4

DS, last year, was between 1-3 marks off the next grade up in three subjects which really mattered to him (he was actually in a similar position for virtually all his subjects). We had all three remarked (at great expense) and his grades didn't change in any . Indeed, he went up a mark in a couple of papers and down a mark or two in others. Not only was I almost £360 worse off but there had been an expectation of at least one upgrade which caused further disappointment for DS when it didn't happen.

Was that this year Ceecee? How long did the remark take?

My ds had Physics reviewed as he was 1 mark off a C. There was no change to paper one but they found an extra mark on paper two so he went up a grade. It was the only one he failed so we felt with him only being one mark off it was worth a try.

How did you get access to this figures Cherry?

AQA have undoubtedly tightened up their quality assurance processes but there’s still scope for human error in the marking process.
Overall, very few students drop grades. The trend analysis has not yet been released and is still at internal review stage.
There were 21, 000 review of markings (about 4% of all papers sat) in that paper with an average change of 0.4 marks. This year 74.7% had no mark change. This compares with over half having mark changes last year. AQA provides and marks over 8 million English papers. Very few drop grades.

There is an element of double standards here.

It seems like it's not about getting the correct grade as parents are only prepared to accept a grade going up.

If a grade does down they are angry yet, assuming the revised mark is the correct one, that is the grade their child deserves. You can't have it both ways.

Yes, £4 per paper, c£40 per paper for a review. Not sure how that works...

How do you know there is a trend for grades not to be changed this year? Not a single statistic about reviews has been given yet.

I also think that the major problem with marking is that the exam boards pay £4 per paper. Many examiners are saying this is leading to serious errors.

Gulp. We submitted remark request for AQA English Language yesterday, also one mark away from the next grade. Am now terrified.

Remarks that move that many marks is a sign of poor initial marking. It's very possible that AQA is trying to scare people off remarking, but to me it just reveals that they are still not on top of their marking quality (apparently their marking last year was poor as well). If the initial marking is high quality, than a remark should only move you a few marks. Unless there is some kind of clerical error.

3076Worb - do you know if the person in question asked for a copy of the script? They may want to review if it was done correctly. I believe there is some kind of appeals procedure?

As it is a review they would check the addition and it is possible that 10 marks may have been an addition error initially, or a data entry error.

Also they do not fully remark - they check the bandings.

so in an 8 mark question the bandings could be 0, 1-3, 4-6, 7-8.

So it is possible if the original marked it as a 6 but the checker though it should be in the 1-3 category she would drop 3 marks on that one quesion alone and it doesn't take long for marks to drop if they have been banded incorrectly on a number of questions.