A2 French (AQA) result - unexpectedly low grade

[3littlefrogs]

Anyone else perplexed/disappointed or had an unexpectedly poor result?

[ImperialBlether]

In an ideal world there wouldn't be any re-marks but when they are cutting costs for training etc and expecting people to mark long papers on screen (thus losing a lot of experienced markers) it's inevitable, I'm afraid.

[Happy36]

No probs and sorry if I sounded eggy, I really didn't mean to, just hoped that anyone else reading this thread in a panic about re-marks would be slightly reassured.

[ImperialBlether]

Oh okay, thanks, I didn't know that. Hope that is useful to people here.

[Happy36]

If he got his firm or insurance offer grades after the priority re-mark, that university is contractually obliged to accept him, ImperialBlether.

[ImperialBlether]

It was a very popular course with very limited space on it, so he might not have been lucky enough. As it was he was fine but I did wonder what students would do in that instance.

[Happy36]

ImperialBlether Your son could have got a priority re-mark which is usually returned within 24 hours, including weekends and nights, and therefore gone to university without having to defer. That's imagining that the re-mark resulted in his marks AND grade going up.

[ImperialBlether]

Serendipity, I'm so sorry that happened to your son. How on earth did they lose a paper? All exam boards that mark online outsource the scanning of the exam documents - how could one person's go missing?

I think the system should be that the students shouldn't apply until they have their grades. It's crazy that people do better than expected but have to stick with original offers and others do less well and have to run around looking for somewhere to take them. It would stop all of this sort of worry, too. Students have lost places as a result of bad marking and that is disgraceful.

My son was the last of the students paying £3,000 per year. If he had a badly marked paper he would have had to defer, which would have cost him an extra £6,000 per year, through no fault of his own. I was surprised there weren't test cases in court against the exam boards that year.

What has happened now with your son? Will he get onto the course he wanted? What will be the repercussions? No wonder you are so upset.

[3littlefrogs]

I have just asked DC again about this and it appears to be an extraordinarily low mark for unit 3. Something must have gone badly wrong.

[serendipity200]

3littlefrogs my DC had a 0 on his module that is how we knew something was wrong, luckily we had not left the school carpark at that stage, and went to find the examinations officer, who downloaded his 'guestimate' from OCR, DC then called and uni and was luckily able to get through to the admissions tutor, sent a photo of the OCR certificate to her and was told they would be able to firm - relief to say the least, but UCAS didn't update until following morning. Irish system very different and we have lost out there completely. Happy with the uni though. School rang us a few times during the day and the following day, and said that lost papers estimates are like remarks they do get updated on UCAS but take a bit longer. Sometimes if the guesstimate is too longer there is a bit of toing and froing gathering proof etc mock results, classwork etc to be provided. Apparently happens more than one would think, IT SHOULDN'T HAPPEN AT ALL - sorry for shouting...

[3littlefrogs]

Yes - this is about people's life chances and their future.

[3littlefrogs]

Thanks all.
I think that the teacher will be requesting some re-marks.

[serendipity200]

ImperialBlether OCR lost one of my DC's papers this year and made a 'guesstimate' of the module grade which was lower than expected Meant that neither the Uni which was his firm did not receive his grades and we had to send a copy of the guesstimate to them, firmed a day late with a knock on of no accommodation offer yet, when all firm offers seem to be been allocated. More seriously though is that DC's application to the Rep of Ireland universities could not be processed in time for offers (which come out on Tuesday) as OCR had not put 'guesstimate' up on UCAS for their system to access, which we only found out late Friday afternoon. It will be included in 2nd round offers, however, that is like the old clearing here where the courses available are not the competitive ones DC has applied for. We are taking this very seriously indeed, roll on Monday. A statement on the OCR website about 'Estimating' grades which get lost does not absolve them of responsibility in my view. Apologies for sounding bitter, but this unnecessarily does impact a the future of an individual. Ok not the end of the world or life threatening, but careless and irresponsible and a blase approach to their mistake infuriates me.

[Happy36]

3littlefrogs You could phone AQA now to ask about the paper with zero marks. They will be there over this weekend.

Also, do as Imperial advised and doublecheck that the marks for each unit add up to the total marks awarded (and that this mark is in the grade boundary for the grade given).

[ImperialBlether]

Just thinking about those lowered grades... if a teacher tried to be clever and put A grades for predicted grades when the students had never been near an A grade in their lives, that would cause the exam board to lower the grades, presumably. So if an A2 paper went missing and the student got a D and an E for the AS module, a C for one A2 module and then the teacher predicted an A for both A2 modules, I would imagine the exam board would refuse to give an A for the missing module.

[ImperialBlether]

WJEC doesn't mark electronically, as far as I know, because it's a small exam board. I used to teach an A level for that board. This means that the papers would be sent from the school to an examiner and then sent from the examiner to the exam board for storage and checking etc.

I know there was a case a couple of years ago where an examiner's house caught fire and everyone got their predicted grades. I don't see how they could be given lower than their predicted grades; that's the point of predicting them.

I don't understand in the OP's case why there wasn't a mark by the exam module. I do know some of the exam paperwork can be difficult to understand at first. For example, I don't think they put a mark for an AS module (trying hard to remember this) when the student gets the A2 grade.

The reason that case was in the paper was presumably because it's rare. I didn't mean it never happens, more that I've never heard of it happening. The only one I remember was the fire.

[AugustRose]

Imperial It's interesting you say you have never heard of an exam board losing an exam - I have just been reading my local paper and there is an item about exactly that. Exams for several students at a Carlisle school have been given lowered grades after the WJEC exam board lost their psychology papers.

Thankfully this is not my son's school or exam but it is making me question his history paper more, and the fact that his school are paying for the remark confirms that they also think something has gone wrong.

[ImperialBlether]

I've never heard of an exam board losing an exam. Now that so many are marked online, it goes straight from the school to the exam board (and it's tracked, using Parcel Force or similar), where it's scanned in. Examiners access it electronically.

It would be interesting if someone on here had a child taking the same exam who could compare mark sheets.

[cathyandclaire]

I bow to Imperial's knowledge, I only know what I've read on The Student Room

[cathyandclaire]

Sounds like they've lost the exam.
That is good news for you I'd have thought, if they can't find it I understand the estimate based on the other papers/mocks/predictions which will almost certainly up her grade.
Good luck!

[ImperialBlether]

Add up the tasks that have got marks and see whether the total matches the number given on the overall grade sheet. If you could give us the marks it would help.

Btw I'm an examiner for OCR.

[3littlefrogs]

Exam task.
We will go in on Monday to discuss as that is the designated day when all the teachers will be in.

I think it hasn't been marked, or maybe got lost somehow, but I don't know whether that is even possible.

[ImperialBlether]

No marks for one paper? Was it a coursework task or an exam task that has missing marks?

What does the school have to say about it?

[3littlefrogs]

The breakdown of marks in my case shows no marks for one whole paper.
I am certain it is fishy.

This is with a background of straight As for every single previous exam and paper.

[Happy36]

My A Level subject at my school does not do AQA so apologies if AQA doesn't offer this - look at the breakdown of the results to see if it was one paper in particular where the mark was lower than the others. Then on that paper look at the breakdown of marks by question (in tandem with the exam. paper) and see where the marks were lost. If it looks fishy, you could request a re-mark, but do remember that marks can go down as well as up.

Basically if there are just lower than expected grades across all papers, it's probably not worth requesting the re-mark. On the other hand, if one or two questions worth, say, 30 points, have been marked very low (and much lower than the rest), unless your child can re-collect having screwed up / not answered / not understood that or those questions, consider the re-mark.

[3littlefrogs]

Apparantly "StudentRoom" is heaving with distressed people who have had bizarrely poor grades from AQA.

These students have had consistently high marks throughout their A level courses yet have ended up with C and D grades. There really needs to be some sort of enquiry about this IMO.