Are GCSE results ever calculated incorrectly?

[thunderbird69]

I don't mean the marking but allocating the wrong grades?

My DS got a D for English lit (foundation) and was surprised as he expected a C. I've had a look at the grade boundaries filestore.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_pdf/AQA-GCSE-GDE-BDY-JUNE-2015.PDF on page 9 to see how close he was. Pic attached

For 97151F 97152F and 97153 the marks for a C seem to be 45, 31 and 21
He got 47, 41 and 26 and was given a D for each of those and a D overall

Am I reading it wrong?

(Thanks for looking and humouring me)

I'd be surprised.

Are you sure whether you are looking at raw marks or UMS marks, and looking at them consistently? I think the results sheets give UMS marks.

Are those raw or ums marks?

My results sheets had the grade boundaries printed in the back. I imagine it is highly unlikely for them to be wrong.

Transcribing mistakes might happen sometimes... There was a case i heard of when I was in 6th of a lad being given 19 ums rather than 91. Urban legend, perhaps. But assigning the grade to the number is likely am automated process.

Everything's marked online now (except for WJEC) so manual error can't occur. If there's a mistake, everyone will suffer from it.

It's the UMS marks you need to be looking at. Also, the grade boundaries can change slightly each year.

The maximum mark show on the table is, I believe, the maximum mark shown on the exam paper, so I assume the grade boundaries are the actual raw marks?

I'll probably call the school later to ask them, just wondering if it worth a re-mark

Imperial - can you explain UMS to me?

I really just want to know how to find out how far off a C he was

The raw marks are translated to UMS. The UMS boundaries stay the same each year but if a paper is a bit easier then you need raw marks to get to the same UMS.

So e.g. DD's science papers were each marked out of 60, but for one paper she got 62 UMS on her results sheet.

I think your DS got 114 UMS. he needed 100 for a D, and 120 for a C See here page 27.

UMS means uniformed mark scheme which means that across modules or units or even exam seasons the 'raw' marks can be standardised.

For example I get 40 marks out of 50 on one paper and 36 out of 50 on another, because obviously the questions are different it could be that the first paper is 'easier' than the second.

So the UMS standardises everything by perhaps saying 40 raw marks on paper 1 is worth 20 UMS and 36 marks on paper 2 is also worth 20 UMS.

It is this UMS that is added together to decide grade boundaries. So if you have raw marks you need to convert them to UMS - all of this will be possible by the exam boards website.

Then add up the UMS and look at the UMS grade boundaries for that subject. This will tell you how far the student was away in terms of UMS which could equate to just one 'raw' mark on one of their exams or coursework.

If you feel that this is close then it is worth asking for a remark. The school exam officer should do the paperwork.

Thanks.

TeenandTween - thanks!!

That makes more sense

From that he needed 48,42 and 30 for a C
He got 47,41 and 26.

So, pretty close on parts 1 and 2 but a bit far off on 3. If I'm right, part 3 was the controlled assessment part and his teaacher told him it was a B!

Not sure if it is worth a remark. No harm if it goes down, but what are chances of it going up?

No idea on chances. (I'm just delighted DD got a C for her English language!).

I don't think you can get CAs re-marked though, so the actual paper(s) would have to go up by more to compensate for the CA.

DataEducator - thanks for the explanation! (sorry, didn't see that when I last posted)

I've emailed the school so will see what they say. It's no big deal if he doesn't have it, but would be nice to add another to the total.

TeenandTween - yes, BIG relief to get Eng Lang. Apparently DS had a moment of panic when he misread the sheet and thought it was D for Language not Literature!

Worth adding that school departments often put student's in who are close to boundaries for remarks and they pay for them because it is important for them too.

Not sure they would for English Lit... this year but they might. Depends on the school, and budgets.

I'm not sure that giving the actual marks is a good idea - too much to scrutinise!
I've also now noticed that for Chemistry in the 4 units he got B,B,E,B. An overall C seemed ok, but now it looks very odd that one of the papers was marked so low...

thunderbird could the E paper be a lower level.
Dd1's French went A, A*, E and B. I was a bit surprised at the discrepency, but she said the E was on the listening where she'd only dfone the lower level. She just missed an A, but I'm thrilled for her as her school does it in one year in year 9 for some strange reason.

No, the science papers are all the same level. 1-3 are all similar exam papers, just different areas of the syllabus and 4 is the controlled assessment.
His marks were 70,74,45,75. I've asked him and he said he didn't think that paper was any different in difficulty than the others.
I'm thinking he either made a lot of silly mistakes or the marks weren't entered/added up correctly (if that is possible?)

Because the papers are scanned into the system prior to marking, there could be pages missing. With that discrepancy, I would ask for a remark.

Cheers Carol - I've contacted the school exam sec to see if they agree it looks like a good case for remark