Why are A level results not absolute?

[TwigTheWonderKid]

Presumably A levels have strict marking schemes so can someone please explain to me why can't students be given the marks they got rather than grades which presumably are affected by what everyone else got?

If they were given a raw mark surely it would be more transparent to universities and employers and stop the annual argument about fairness in how many A and A* have been awarded?

Because its meaningless. Some years papers are harder than others. A number is meaningless without context

They get given both the grade and the mark (or at least DS has been).

But can't the difference in "hardness" be accounted for in the marking scheme and can't the questions on papers be balanced so that the total number of possible marks is always the same?

Because the universities can't predict how hard/easy that year's exam will be compared to previous years so can't say students need at least 150 marks etc - it wouldn't be fair.

Mark schemes can't be adjusted for marks that would be far too complicated. It doesn't really matter whether you get 40% or 70% - what matters is how that places you compared to everyone else. Employers would have no idea what they were looking at I don't think

The total number of marks is always the same anyway unless there's a specification change for that subject - but there is more than one exam board per subject so marks across them can be different.

The clue is in the name. The A in A Levels stands for "approximate".

No it wouldn't make any sense at all out of context. But they do give the marks - frustrating when it's just one mark of the next grade!

Because some people don't even sit them . They sit Highers or they go to College and do Higher National Certificates or shock horror ,apprenticeships!

But can't the difference in "hardness" be accounted for in the marking scheme

No. You don’t know a particular question, or overall paper, is ‘hard’ until, say, 90% of people get it wrong compared with 30% for another question. Some questions are barely even attempted because they are perhaps worded oddly or have encompass a not particularly popular part of the spec, so where students have a choice, they opt for the better worded question/ the one that best allows them to show off their knowledge. And some students won’t attempt some questions because their knowledge isn’t up to scratch but that will vary from student to student, depending on their teachers abilities/experience, the revision they did do, interests, luck…..grades are awarded post-marking when the cohort is looked at as a whole. If no one scored higher than 40%, the A can hardly be placed at 80%! Giving a grade takes into account fluctuations from year to year - in my subject today there was a 20 mark difference compared with 2019 where the A was placed (and so downwards). That’s huge.

We don’t operate a fixed system where 90% = A, 80% = B and so on…it takes into account actual student experience of the exam.

Not sure if your being sarcastic but it’s ‘advanced’ level

I thought to that previously A levels were criterion referenced rather than norm referenced but that it was a political decision to move to what is effectively norm referenced because they saw improving results as actually meaning dealing standards? We're all familiar with the narrative that any upward movement from the previous year’s distribution of grades tends to be described as ‘grade inflation’ rather than, say, the result of improved student performance or better teaching.

You can't account for hardness in the marking, how would that even work?

The fairest thing to do it allocate marks based on the same distribution each year, so the top x% get A*, next y% get A etc, you get the drift

That will eliminate the difficulty variable

But can't the difference in "hardness" be accounted for in the marking scheme and can't the questions on papers be balanced so that the total number of possible marks is always the same?

No. Think about different subjects. In English, for instance, the grade boundafy for an A* this year was far higher (for the exam boards at my school at least!) than for, say, Maths. So 43 in Maths might be equivalent to an 82 in English. You also have the issue of different exam boards, and the impossibly of ensuring that all exams are exactly equivalent in terms of difficulty. That is impossible. Marks are weighted and then transferred into grades in order to contextualise them. There would be no context in the way you suggest.

why can't students be given the marks they got rather than grades which presumably are affected by what everyone else got?

DD got her results this morning-she got the marks and the grades.

No, it doesn't.

It stands for "Advanced Levels" aka A Levels!

Whilst you are technically correct @DownNative this article would suggest that @MarmadukeSpillageEsquire is not far from the truth.

What grade did you get in your humour A level 😂

@TwigTheWonderKid that article is a bit of a shocker... 1 in 4?!

It's a dirty business.

Approximate is about right.

"We seek perfection, but can find no perfect means to bring it about." William Morris.

Also I believe they aren’t just marked against the cohort who sat the exam with say the top 15% awarded an A. The % awarded an A is also affected by the statistical expectations the examiners have of a particular cohort based on prior national testing. All these factors (difficulty of paper, marks scored by cohort, expected performance of cohort) come together to form the grades, which in theory should give balanced grading across the years.
A raw mark absolutely wouldn’t do this.

I know, @Acuppaandcake !

But can't the difference in "hardness" be accounted for in the marking scheme and can't the questions on papers be balanced so that the total number of possible marks is always the same?
No, because mark schemes have to be approved by OFQUAL. The two GCSEs I mark have the same mark scheme every year (which has been approved) but the indicative standard is adjusted to the specific sitting.

We do always have the same number of marks in the same order, organised to assess the same skills.
Schools do get the question level data. Candidates should be able to get it if they ask the school for it.

Of course it doesn't. It stands for 'Advanced!