Am I being thick? AQA marks...

[boschy]

I think I must be missing something here. Just looking in detail at DD1's results for Eng Lang this summer, where she got a D overall. She can do it again in Y11, so not a major issue although she thought she had at least got a C.

But when I compared the breakdown of marks against the grading on AQA's site they dont seem to tally.
Can anyone explain? eg
for unit 1 she got 65 (C grade appears to be 44)
for unit 2 she got 30 (C grade appears to be 41)
for unit 3 she got 59 (C grade appears to be 54)

So she got 154 points in total, when the total for a C would appear to be 139.
Is there something I'm missing? averagising or something?? thanks in advance

Yes they convert everything to UMS, I can't remember what that stands for tho.

The marks you have given are raw unconverted marks and the grade boundaries are UMS scores.

I'm not sure how to convert between the two - each unit will be different tho - the idea is that the UMS will normalised easier and harder exams (ha! After recent fiasco!)

Ah, thanks for that. presumably they make it as complicated as possible so us mere mortal parents cannot fathom it!!

I don't know how it works in English but I think in science there is a conversion table for each exam to tell you what the UMS is for each score.

Sorry I'm on my phone so can't rummage on the website for you.

Just went on the AQA UMS converter thingy, which makes it even more incomprehensible... got to pop in to school today so might try and see if I can nab a teacher to explain!

Are you possibly mixing up the raw scores (what she actually got on the paper) and the UMS(uniform mark scale).

UMS results are a way of making sure people get the right grade, no matter when they took a particular unit. For example, Chris takes the exam for a particular unit in January while Ali takes that unit in June. Because the exam questions will be different between the January and June sittings, it's possible that one exam might be slightly more difficult than the other.

If both students got 42/50 on their exams for example (this is known as the raw mark), but the June exam was more difficult than the January sitting, then their marks wouldn't represent the same level of achievement.

The UMS balances out differences between exams, so the raw marks you get are converted to a UMS mark, allowing comparisons with other sittings of the same unit. UMS marks from all your units are then added together to give you an overall mark for your qualification
The link is here:
web.aqa.org.uk/exams-office/about-results/uniform-mark-scale.php

store.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_pdf/UMS-GRADE-BOUNDARIES.PDF
This link works with your DD's marks, assuming she did course 4702

Thanks for that; I've just gone through the UMS and think I must be doing something wrong as she would appear to have got a B in English and a C/D in maths rather than the D and G she got respectively.
will go in and find someone to explain!!!

Boschy, can I ask you to let us know how you got on? I am a bit confused over this too.

Have looked again at above links on page 19. I am no expert but assuming it is English GCSE 4702 and you have UMS Points that your DD :

Eng 1 H or F non fiction texts - she got 65 ( a D is 60+ and a C 72+)
ENG 02 Spking & Listening - she got 30 ( a D is 30+)
ENG 03 Creative Texts - she got 59 ( an E is 48 + and a D is 60+)

Total 154 D grade ( a D is 150 + and a C is 180 +)

Hope this helps rather than hinders!!!

Having sat down with DD's AQA Foundation English marks, I have just painstakingly worked out all the English raw marks from the UMS marks with the aid of the AQA converter. It seems that my DD is one of the unlucky people who would've passed in January but failed in June. Given that she has a raw score of 117 and needed 120 for the C (161 UMS needed 166) is it worth a re-mark?

well I saw the dep head this morning, who is going to look into it for me. As I say I could well be completely wrong, I am no statistician or mathematician, but I did what the converter said for all 6 papers (3 english, 3 maths).

They show a helpful graph to confirm what grade you would get, and they were considerably higher than the grades she did get.

So I dunno, but he said he would call me tomorrow so I will report back!

Fozzie that is so hard... any news from your school about remarking?

boschy I have emailed, but will ring if I hear nothing tomorrow. Sadly I live 19 miles away and they only started back today. I will keep my fingers crossed for you!

I agree - it looks like you have UMS marks there (for the higher tier)
Unit 1: 65/120 UMS (54% = D)
Unit 2: 30/60 UMS (50% = D)
Unit 3: 59/120 UMS (49% = E)

Total = 154/300 UMS (51% = D)

A* = 90%, A = 80%, B = 70%, C = 60%, D = 50%

In contrast, if they were raw marks (which are not how they are reported to students and teachers) it would become

Unit 1: 116/120 UMS (97% = A*)
Unit 2: 38/60 UMS (63% = C)
Unit 3: 80/120 UMS (67% = C)

Total = 234/300 UMS (78% = B)

The converter is there so when doing past papers you can see what grade you would have got after UMS conversion.

oh god its baffling... I dont mind either way, and am fully prepared to accept that I have got it completely wrong - dep head made the point today that she would prob have to do both again anyway if school thought she could do better in either, but it would be such a confidence booster for her if she'd done better than the first results. she is dyslexic and she struggles, and is aware that she has to work so hard.
fozzie good luck for your DD.

He called me back yesterday. I dont quite understand the explanation, but basically they were right, so the D for English and G for maths stands.

What he did say though was that the system is so confusing, he followed the process I had and got the same results so went and talked it through with the head of english for proper clarification. He has had several parents come in with the same query who've done what I did, and he says the AQA UMS thingy is a load of pants and not fit for purpose!

Thanks for coming back on here Boschy. I'm so pleased it was clarified for you, nothing worse than thinking you've not done the right thing because it's such a complex system to understand. Will your DD re-sit? Our school has a lot of dyslexic girls so I know how hard it can be, this system does not cater for them enough. I've also spoken to the school this morning who are themselves going through all the marks and writing to all delegates with a 'near miss'. It seems my calculations were correct (in shock) and we are 3 raw marks off the C and 5 UMS marks off. We have decided to go for a re-mark - nothing to loose really (except the money), not sure I'm holding out much hope as I can imagine the exam board don't want to be proved wrong about their grade boundaries. It's so annoying that my DD would've got a C in January but not in June. I'm keeping my fingers crossed she can still get onto the NVQ course she wants.

Fozzie, your situation is worse than ours actually, because your DD was close enough to be affected by the Jan to June situation. Really really unfair I think, everything crossed for your girl.

DD1 will resit both english lang and maths in Y11 - she would have done so anyway because our school makes them resit if they think they can improve their grade, even if they got eg an A. I'm just disappointed for her because of the confidence boost it would have given her.