GCSE: Can there ever be a fail-safe "technique" to getting a 9 in a humanities subject?

[bybybabies]

My DD sat GCSE Short Course RE in year 10 and said she was 100% sure she'd get a 9, because she knew all the answers and structured them in exactly the way she had been taught, making sure there were the right number of points for the number of marks available, and that she included quotes or evaluated where needed. She got a 9 in her mock, and always got near full marks when practicing the questions for homework etc, so felt she knew what she was doing. I tried to manage her expectations, and when she got her result yesterday it was an 8 (though only one mark off a 9). She is disappointed, and convinced the marking may be overly harsh or wrong, probably related to her writing style - she says she writes slowly, so needs to be succinct as possible and usually makes her points in fewer sentences than her friends. She says her own teachers are used to her way of writing, and tell her its fine so long as she has the right number of points, but that the examiner might have taken a different view.
So, we will ask for the paper to be checked, but in the meantime I'm managing her expectations again. I'm no teacher, but my instinct is that exam technique probably isn't as formulaic as she seems to think - possibly it was in the past, but I think the new GCSEs are meant to be less formulaic aren't they? If so, what can I say to her (kindly) to explain that getting a 9 in a Humanities subject is not as simple as knowing the answers and applying a formulaic technique when putting them down on paper?

Ask your daughter to show you the marking criteria for the paper/s she is doing. Short answers (one or two marks) usually are about putting the right number of points, but longer answers usually require ‘development’ (which demonstrates a depth of understanding) or ‘argument’ (which shows how well students can apply and evaluate what they have learnt). It sounds as if the ‘development’ isn’t really showing enough understanding, and/or the ‘argument’ isn’t really showing enough critical analysis.

My Ds did this for RS and scored pretty much 100%. I think it works better for some subjects than others. He's found using the correct terminology for eg in Biology or Geography gains high marks. I think it's different for English as you need to analyse and this is subjective to a certain extent.

Ds isn't a creative thinker and as part of his creative writing revision, he wrote out half a dozen stories which could be adapted for most topics ie; peril/escape, growing up/ageing, friendship, weather/seasons etc. One of the topics came up in a roundabout way and he was able to use some of the creative passages he'd learnt and fashion them into a story. This was good for him as he is not a quick thinker or writer.

There's no real failsafe method for getting a 9, other than getting 100% on the paper- because of the way grade boundaries are set, even if you do very well, if enough people do better, you won't get a 9.

For exams with an essay component, I do think it can be less formulaic than e.g. sciences, where, in general, if you learn all the content and the exam technique for the different types of question, you can pretty much guarantee a high score. Of course, that's very easy to say, and much harder to do.

I teach a more creative arts subject and, a lot of the time, the difference between the 8 exam and the 9 exam is that the 8 has learned how to put the formula together to exactly answer the question, but the 9 has a genuine talent/flair for the subject and isn’t as obviously formulaic.

As others have said, you cannot guarantee a grade 9, because even though it's presented as a grade boundary on the results slip this grade is worked out in a different way. The top 10% of students obtain a grade 9 and you don't know how well other people will do. So realistically the highest you can be sure of obtaining is a grade 8 in these circumstances.
I have marked GCSE papers and there is no evidence that students who write longer answers obtain higher marks. Sometimes the opposite is true as these students contradict themselves or manage their time poorly.
Having the correct number of writing points in your answer doesn't guarantee full marks as sometimes candidates write answers that are repeats of the same marking point. In other words you need 6 different points for 6 marks.
As another poster has said sometimes examiners are looking for a developing argument where it becomes progressively harder to obtain more marks.
Considering this exam was taken a year early, a grade 8 is very good indeed.

I exam mark (for English). An answer can be too formulaic and lack flair. I always know what is a 9 because of the flow of that answer, the ease and the independent thought. A trained formulaic answer is just that - most examiners are experts in how to answer a question so can spot the natural flair - often 9s contain none of the set pattern you mention.

@Pieceofpurplesky @tithead22 is there something in the mark scheme about demonstrating flair? If there was something objective I could point to it might help, otherwise it is a bit of an intangible concept to explain. I don"t want it to sound like "you didn't get a 9 because you lack sufficient talent" as that would be very demotivating for next year. She needs something tangible that she can work on.

Mark schemes work in bands, rather than grades, so a response will be, for example, band 4/5, rather than a grade 7/8/9. Looking at RS on Eduqas for a longer question, this is the mark scheme. Obviously for a 9 the candidate needs to operate in that excellent/highly detailed/extensive, confident and accurate use of terminology consistently.

I think RS is pretty formulaic at gcse (having taught and examined it) and a bright hardworking student could have it pretty nailed down. It’s not quite like English (which I’ve also taught). Maybe the arguments she used weren’t felt to be as well explained or as strong as her teacher had said they were. Maybe she misread a question. She obviously didn’t do anything very wrong to be one mark off 9 and it won’t be deliberately under by 1 mark because of the overall quality of her answers as examiners mark but by bit, it’s just bad luck she came up just under the grade boundary so probably not really a reflection of anything particular she did. Sorry not to give anything more tangible to work on!

But if it’s one mark off, I’d put it in for a remark. it’s very unlikely to go down a grade and reasonably likely to go up. If she’s convinced she aced it and you can afford the bet on a remark why not? My 40 yr old sister remains annoyed our parents didn’t get her one A (next to 11As!) remarked to see if it would go up to an A. Several of her friends did and they all got their grades moved up. My mum actually mentioned last week that she still feels guilty about it as it put my sister off pursuing that subject!

If she’s really keen to understand where she lost marks, you could possibly request her script too and ask to go through it with her teacher.

I teach history rather than RS but still a humanities subject. In history the key to a 9 is consistency across all questions and an ability to grasp what each question is really getting out. A grade 7-8 student might write a really good answer about a topic, but grade 9s really engage with the nuance of the question. They understand that there’s a difference between “explain why William of Normandy won the battle of Hastings” and “Explain why William I became king of England in 1066”.

It's not "reasonably likely to go up". Reviews are not looking for marks; they're looking to see if the marks awarded are reasonable.
In my subject we are looking for convincing and compelling communication at the top of the mark range. That's not something that you can teach. Formulaic responses won't do it.

@MadameMinimes that distinction on the William I questions is really helpful, thank you.

Knowing the approach that is required by the mark scheme is really important in accessing top grades. If you don’t know this, you’re unlikely to be successful in jumping through the hoops. But these different elements aLso need to be done in sufficient depth…so there needs to be enough evidence, enough explanation and enough evaluation. Sometimes people do these things but too briefly and so don’t get the higher level marks, which are usually related to quality evaluation in the higher mark questions.

I disagree that flair and originality is needed. Not at GCSE and actually not at A Level either. However, fluent writing is really important, and having a sense of nuance and being able to weigh different arguments is important. You can learn these things to some degree, but those with greater conceptual understanding and those who can express themselves more clearly are more likely to be able to do these things to the higher level.

Often, an 8 is achieved because enough marks are dropped on each question, or because 1 bigger question is poor. Given grade boundaries are actually pretty low this year in some humanities (History more than RS ….RS is seen as more accessible and easier to do well, so grade boundaries are higher) to get a L9, you only needed about 70% for some boards. This absolutely can be achieved by a bright person who is well taught and who has learned both technique and factual content. That said, of course most won’t get the 9. Often weaker students think they are doing everything that’s required, but their level of knowledge and particularly their ability to relate the info to the Q and to evaluate it, is what keeps them in the lower bands.

I can only speak for AQA RS (the board I have taught) but I would agree that the 9 is often not as formulaic.

Some of the common mistakes students make that cost them marks...

• When quoting from sources, or giving references have they said where the references are from? If they don't specify that it's something Jesus said, or it's a quote from the Bible, then the quote mark is not awarded.

• For the 4 and 5 mark questions have they made two distinct points? Often students parrot back the question as part of their first point, but that's not enough to get the mark. Eg the question asks fir two reasons why a believer does not believe in sex before marriage and they respond with "a Christian does not agree with sex before marriage because they think it's wrong" that sort of thing doesn't give enough info for more marks.

• on the 12 mark question have they answered the exact question, and if there's two parts to it, both parts? Lots of students lose marks because they're not really answering the question. Eg the question asks about religious believers and discriminating against homosexuals, and the student responds by explaining what the church thinks about homosexuality, rather than the discrimination of homosexuals.

• many students also write too much on the shorter questions and not enough on the 12 mark.

Oh and the evaluation on the 12 mark question is not so much what you think, but rather it should be weighing up the two arguments and saying which argument is better and why. I tutor RS and see a lot of schools still teaching students to just put their views in their conclusion. It used to work on the old exam spec, but not on this one.

This explains the AQA view to marking. It's amazing how many schools are not following this still!

filestore.aqa.org.uk/sample-papers-and-mark-schemes/2020/november/AQA-GCSE-RS-SMG-NOV20.PDF