How rigid are the marking schemes for KS2 comprehension?

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I've been told DS2 needs to practice, so we're giving it a go. Sometimes the answers he gives aren't the ones required, but they're not exactly wrong either. For example, today's passage was about the Marie Celeste. The first line was "The Marie Celeste was a sailing ship" later on it explained that she set sail for Italy with a cargo....

Question : What kind of ship was the Marie Celeste?

DS1's answer : A cargo ship

So, does he get the mark?

Was this at home, OP?

Yes, his teacher has asked me to get him to practice at home

Well, I'm not a teacher, but I'd give him the mark; he's combined information from two sources and given the correct answer.

Yes, I would too, I think it shows that he's read and understood the whole passage, rather then just picking out the answers iyswim.

What I'm worried about though is that the SATs test themselves will have rigid right or wrong answers and that if he doesn't write exactly what's on the marking scheme he won't get the mark, but I have no idea how it works in reality.

They may seem rigid in the mark schemes, but at the training sessions before they start marking, the markers are given loads of additional info about each question. So while it may not say 'accept cargo ship' in the mark scheme you can see, if this is something that came up alot in the sample papers, it would be adjusted before any live marking took place.
(Sorry - I realise this doesn't help you!)
You might want to look at what the assessment focus of the answer is ... if the answer doesn't do what the assessment focus is asking, it can't be right.
(I agree with Iamnotminterested by the way!)

Usually the mark scheme gives a number of acceptable options. I would accept cargo ship.

The marking schemes are very strict, you need to know what exactly they say is acceptable.

It would depend on the type of question. Reading comprehension has 7 assessment focuses. (if you google reading assessment focuses you'll find loads of examples types of questions for each reading assessment focus). Reading assessment focus 2 (AF2) relates to the literal retrieval of information from a text. So in other words the child has to simply find and copy something written in the text. These types of questions tend to carry 1 mark (as opposed to 3 marks for questions requiring inference and deduction), and tend to be found at the beginning of the test paper, with longer, higher level question towards the end. Because of the nature of this type of question, there tends to be one acceptable answer, which is specified in the mark scheme for teachers, so in my opinion the acceptable answer would be 'sailing ship'.

I think this goes to show that the SATs are deeply flawed. His answer is actually better than the "accepted" one if not just as equal. If the marking is that rigid then the results are do not represents a child's ability.

I agree Emily. When I mark test papers ( as a teacher not examiner) I do think it's unfair that we expect children to put a particular answer when the question could be interpreted in different ways.

On the single mark questions there is usually a single correct answer for questions worth more there will often be a range of acceptable answers some worth the full mark and others worth less. So if a question is worth 2 marks answer a would get 2 marks and answer b only 1 mark ...If you look at the mark schemes from a previous year you will see what I mean www.st-josephs-pickering.n-yorks.sch.uk/SATs%20papers/English%20SATs%20papers/2010%20English/2010%20English%20Mark%20Scheme.pdf