Can someone explain why grade boundaries change

[Ceci03]

I'm still struggling to understand. Oning from Rep of Ireland where an A is always 85-100 and a B is always 70-84 I'm struggling to understand why the boundaries change for A level. And it seems for GCSE as well? Like how does a student know how they're doing when the boundaries are so fluid. I dont understand. Thanks !

Because the it's a different paper each year, and there is therefore variation in difficulty. To account for that they change the grade boundaries so roughly the same amount of students get an A/B etc each year

To account for difficulty of the paper. When my daughter has done practice papers she always just checks against mark scheme for that year to see what she would have got.

they don’t usually seem to vary by a lot.

Also covers the different boards - some could have a harder paper than others so setting the grade against a fixed % would disadvantage some people.

I find the whole concept of different exam boards really odd. Why doesn’t everybody just sit the same paper, then there wouldn’t need to be a cottage industry around it? I assume it’s because someone somewhere is making a lot of money out of it!!

I assume so also, @sybill.

You either adjust your grade boundaries or adjust your marking standards to produce what you hope will be a reasonable grade distribution. With the second method ypy may go back and adjust your rubric after marking a reasonable sample of papers, and it is still more of a guessing game. It is easier to adjust your grade boundaries

@Ceci03 not my explanation but a good one

"Exam boards strive to ensure that it is no easier or harder to achieve a particular grade from one year to the next. This means that if one year's paper is harder than a previous year's paper, the grade boundaries are lowered to reflect this."

OCR exam board admitted that their GCSE computer science paper was more difficult this year and adjusted the grade boundaries to reflect this. They were responding to complaints from teachers about the paper being harder than previous years. The exam board agreed.

It seems very subjective then? Like difficult for a student to know where they stand? Say for A levels this year my daughter was told she dropped a grade in each subject due to grade boundaries. So technically there are students who got the same mark as her but a higher grade. It's hard to get my head around

I mean if she did the same paper last year she would have gotten the same mark but it would be a grade higher students who got the same mark as her but did the exams last year are walking round with a grade higher. I can't get my head round it. Like where is the standard.

Sorry if I'm being thick but when I did my leaving cert in Ireland there was a standard so if you scored the points you got the grade. And then in uni there were certain criteria and standard you had to get to to be awarded a certain classification. It didn't change every year . There was a standard and you either reached it or didn't. Is it not u fair to students to be constantly moving the goal posts year on year

But at uni marks are adjusted before the students see them,@Ceci03 This is because the grade boundaries or degree classifications are percentages. At least that’s how it works in the UK.

We have External Examiners on each Examinations Board to ensure standards

But last year (summer 2022) the grade boundaries were lower due to covid hangover.
Thus summer they went back to 'normal'.
So yes last year it was 'easier' to get a particular grade in a subject. But those kids missed a term of year 12. It was also to protect them from the huge grade inflation of the previous 2 years of teacher assessed grades. As the last year of those kids (2021) were still competing for uni places (a lot deferrred as unis were over subscribed).
This year grade boundaries went back to 2019 levels.....
It was always going to hit 2023 kids worst...as they didn't take GCSEs but had normal A level grade boundaries

Grade boundaries have changed completed from your experience of Ireland too @Ceci03 H1 to H7 for higher level grades at LC. Even though I’ve had two kids through junior cycle I haven’t a clue about the grade boundaries there, they are mad.

If you are organising a National exam there are a number of ways of organising it.

The first way, you mark it and then say the top 10% get an A, next 10% a B and so on. This is basically a quota system. GCSEs and A levels don't do that.

The second way, you say that anyone who can (for example) solve a quadratic gets an A, so if you reach the standard you get the grade, like music exams. GCSEs and A levels are not marked like this.

The way they are marked is that each year group of students sits what is basically an IQ test on year 7. So the exam boards know whether that year is generally brighter or less bright than other years.

They write the exam paper, and students sit the exam paper. They then look at the grade boundaries. If the paper is an easier paper (the year group have higher marks than previous year groups) grade boundaries will go up so that roughly comparable numbers of students get As, Bs, etc. they use the IQ data as a check.

In practice, grade boundaries do not tend to change that much in big entry subjects, which is why people sometimes say E.g. circle theorems is a grade 9 question.

Thanks @Octavia64 however does this not make it even more unfair in that how can grades across years be compared as you're saying that what might be an A one year wouldn't be a B another year so I'm still confused. If an employer say has 2 candidates and 1 sat A levels in 2020 and got AAA and the other one sat them in 2023 and got BBB but yet if you looked at the breakdown they both received the same mark. I dont see how that is fair. It seems incredibly opaque and difficult to understand to me but I realize I may still not be getting it!

Yeh I know what you mean but they dont change year on year like they do here. Like why daughter requested her exam
Script and her tutor / grind marked it and said if she had been marked last year she would have been a B yet she was awarded a D. Cos of the boundaries changing.

@Octavia64 I still don't get it tho. Say in English who is to say the paper is hard or easy. Is that not subjective. I don't understand how students can aim for a standard when they don't know what the standard is . Sorry not explaining it very well

Not in the same paper tho! The students who got an A for a mark of 200 when your DD got a B will have been sitting a paper assessed as harder. So someone who got 200 this year, would have (perhaps) only scored 180 last year - so a B. Does that make sense? Figures plucked from the air obvs.

The grade boundaries, as a PP says, do not vary that much anyway. Usually only by a couple of marks or so - certainly from year to year (I guess there may be more variation over a longer period, like comparing this year to 2013 - but the exams are totally different anyway so there's no point doing that.

In my subject (MFL) it's not always easy to assess in advance how challenging a paper may be. Yes, the aim is to have parity year on year, but there may be a reading task that most students found much harder and thus the boundary for a particular mark might be lowered. As I say, not by much IME.

To take another example - my DD sat French A level (in 2019 so no Covid issue). She gained a C - but her exact mark on the German paper (which is basically identical tho in German obvs) would have scored a B. AQA said that the reason was, the German paper was much harder.

Ok I'm starting to get my head round it. But the thing is only a very select few people will know which was a "hard" or "easy" year so comparing candidates based on A level results is like comparing apples and oranges as a person with an A could have the same mark as a person from a different year who got a B so an employer for example would think the person with the A is better?

So this means that if you're really academic and bright if you're in a "clever" year you may not get an A whereas if you were in the year above or below which is a less bright or clever year you would
Have more chance to get an A . It seems so unfair to students? Or am I mid understanding

This is correct.

Most students who do A levels are going on to university and the university admissions tutors are comparing candidates from that year plus maybe a few from the previous year.

Then when they graduate and apply for jobs very few employers are bothered about A levels they are interested in which degree and from which uni.

Really??? I thought a levels followed u for life. I know my parents even remember wat they got!!

tbh I don't really think that is so, tho as a pp says, once you are through uni it doesn;t matter much anyway.

Look at it this way: if my DD scored 230/400 in her French A level, and in that year that was a C, because it was an easy paper, and a B required 250/400; but in another year 230 was a B, because it was a harder paper, and a B only needed 220/400 - she would probably (as her ability does not change) have scored fewer marks (on the harder paper, yes?) so gained, say 210/400 - which was still her deserved C.

Tbf tho the marks required for different grades do not vary anything like that much.

I mean your A levels are always your A levels - but even tho I have been asked to prove I have GCSE maths and English (for teaching) and that I have a degree (for several jobs) no one has ever needed to know my A level grades.

Bell curve.

It's just about controlling how many people get the top grades.

@clary I see that you mean but is that not appalling for students? You just say to your really bright kid "oh sorry you didn't get an A cos you're in a bright year". Even though your next door neighbour is a lot less bright and did get an A. What's the point in doing past papers then? You can't rely on them can you. They could either be a lot easier or harder than what yours are gonna be?