Gel pens in exams

[gelpenlady]

Posting for traffic… My daughter has done 6 GCSE exams this week. She didn’t realise that the pen she was using was a gel pen (or really that you are not supposed to use them in exams) and is now panicking. Is this likely to cause a problem? Can anyone that marks papers help? Thanks in advance!!

Who said she wasn’t meant to use them?

I am an invigilator and the instruction on gel pens should be read out very every single exam and the teachers should have reminded them as well.

I'd ask your exams officer about it and see if there is a chance to put in a special consideration. If the instructions were not read out correctly it might be that she was not the only one.

She’ll be fine, and this is absolutely not the sort of thing which warrants special consideration!

The ban on gel pens is simply because they smudge a lot more and almost all exams are scanned and marked online. Get her some good quality black biros for the next exams and tell her not to worry about it.

Just to repeat pp: the instruction about gel pens should have been made explicit. Please ask for special consideration, or speak to the exams officer. In all likelihood it will be ok.

I mark GCSE exams. Tell her to stop worrying. They make you use black pen as it scans in the machine at the exam office, better than blue. This is so the examiners like me can read the paper. Gel will show up. We get loads who have used gel pens and even blue pens. It won’t matter.

The problem is that when you're marking and they've used a gel pen, some of it disappears or is unclear to the examiner.

The ban is because the scanners cannot read them- especially with multiple choice ones. Not because they smudge.

If the instructions were not read out properly then this needs to be determined.

They scan the papers so the worst that is going to happen is a couple of smudges. The examiner won't be able to tell what kind of pen was used. Examiners will be used to reading around the odd illegible word as most students when writing at speed under exam conditions get a bit untidy anyway.

Thanks all. It was read out but because it was with highlighters she’d assumed that it referred to using coloured pens for annotations etc. There was no further explanation. Percypig that’s reassuring. Are they banned because they can smudge during scanning or marking?

To add, she won’t be awarded spec cons for this. The pen will scan.

Yeah, I'm good at reading most illegible handwriting, and the odd smudge isn't a problem, but they don't scan well.
In all probability it'll be fine, but it shouldn't have happened, so needs following up.

Thanks Wondering also reassuring

We can also often see highlighters after scanning too. So as long as she wasn’t writing in yellow or cream gel she will be absolutely fine, it will show up

I’m confused because apparently fountain pen is ok but that must be even more prone to smudges?

Sometimes with gel pens it doesn't show up well.
It'll probably be ok, but do mention it to the exams officer.

This is good info. As invigilators we have had drummed into us the no-scanning thing and we hold boxes of black biros because someone always comes in with a blue pen or only a pencil or whatever and we are told to check as we go around the room because the gel pens don't scan. It's very reassuring to hear from actual examiners that you can mostly see most of it.

I would have hoped that the situation had been caught at some point, but invigilation is a much more complicated job than people realise so it may not have been. Which is why i asked if the instructions were read properly. Because that would need to be followed up on.

I’ve never heard of fountain pen being ok, but agree with others that is to do with the scanning - both smudges and showing up. We’re well used to deciphering dodgy handwriting so she really should be fine - just stick to a black ballpoint pen from now on. Personally I’d suggest a ‘medium’ thickness one as some of the really fine ones are actually v hard to read.

Thanks again everyone

In my experience gel pens sometimes leave tiny blobs of ink that will smudge for quite a while after writing.

Fountain pen ink tends to smudge in the first few seconds after writing but dries quickly unless on glossier papers and is then fine as long as you don't get it wet (unless a very high sheening ink is being used, but I doubt many students would be using one of them).

Chief invigilator here.
Even when students are explicitly warned about gel pens as part of the exam instructions, they may not take the instruction on board, or realise that the pen that they are using is a gel pen.
I used to ask the students to look at the pen they intended to use to check for the word “gel” on it. Turns out that not all gel pens have the information on them though.
Fine-liner (felt tip) type pens also cause some problems, as the ink shows up on both sides of the answer paper. Our invigilators religiously read out the instructions on pens and then walk between the desks at the start of every exam having a look for suspicious looking pens - and there are still issues with pens most days. 😬

So now the question is…. What are the consequences if one slips through the net?

This may be absolute nonsense but I read somewhere that the problem with gel pens is a tiny fraction of them are heat erasable. When heat erasable gel ink is scanned there is a non-zero risk that the text could be erased by an overly warm scanner. (faulty scanner perhaps?)

The fact you've had multiple invigilators g markers here not saying this makes me wonder if this is an urban myth. But I'm putting it out there for MN to send up in, erm, flames.

If there is any truth in it then I would 100% make sure she does not use gel pen again, but the actual risk for each gel pen written paper is probably quite small so it will almost certainly be fine. At this point in the exam cycle, even if this very unlikely thing were to happen, she probably still has another paper left to write which she can do in biro, and they could grade her from that paper alone. So across the population, Very Important that they don't write in gel pen. But for the odd paper here and there, probably no harm done.

If it doesn't scan properly it can usually be read in person.

If it can't be scanned, the original paper gets posted to the examiner to read. It is called an Unscannable and examiners get paid extra to mark them (just a couple of quid extra).

There will be no consequences to your daughter.

If it happens too often though, the exam board might tell off the centre or even charge them for the extra costs incurred

I’m so grateful to everyone. I’ve done a couple of trail scans at home and it seems to be ok. They’re also ultra fast drying apparently. They are water soluble but sounds as though that’s less of an issue