How do Science marks work?

[roisin]

The yr10 science papers have a maximum of 60 marks.
Those are then converted (somehow?) into a UMS mark with a maximum of 100 marks, with 90+ being A*

BUT apparently you don't need to get 60/60 I the paper to get UMS of 100?

I've never worked out how they get UMS. But was a bit shocked to find that on the WJEC English Language Unit DD took you got max UMS for any mark over 33. The unit was marked out of 40. To get enough UMS to get an A you only need 29/40. The difference between a D and a B grade was 6 marks. So you can drop 11 marks and still get an A but drop 6 marks if your a middle of the roader and you might just have stuffed up your English GCSE as a whole.

Once they have marked a large sample of papers, they set grade boundaries. Whatever they decide is the minimum mark for A*, they give that a uniform mark of 90%, 80% for A etc, and come up with a raw:UMS conversion formula. If the paper is harder than usual, the formula might kick out 100% UMS even if the student did not get 100% raw.

The UMS scale is not linear. It is designed to give roughly a bell-curve, but then so are the actual question papers.

Thank you Knowsabitaboutducation - living up to your name there!
That makes perfect sense.

Yw, Roisin :)

It took me three or four years to figure it out. It's not easy, and then they go and change the system just to keep us on our toes.