The best time to go for a review seems really to be when the whole grade is significantly out of kilter with what was expected (ie a couple of grades) and especially when one of the papers seems very out of step with the other ….and when the student had no sense that they had done very differently on that one.
So for example, a student who was expected to get a 9 getting a 7 and finding that on one paper they gained pretty much 100% but on the other (which they felt went equally well) something like 50%. Something there doesn’t look right with the marking of Paper 2. It could be a page has been missed or the mark scheme misapplied. The teacher might also spot a pattern where many students have performed far worse than expected on one paper.
In this case, you’re hoping not for an extra mark or two to bump up over the boundary, but something more significant to happen. And those clerical errors, missing pages and misapplication of markschemes do happen.
Last week someone I know jumped 2 grades on review. They got a 4 when they were expected to get a 7. One paper was very low and out if kilter with the other. The review and returned script indicated that the examiner had marked information in the answer as incorrect when it was correct. Two questions were also identified as ‘significant misapplication of markscheme’ and were boosted by multiple marks each. Essay subject.
Another person I know was expected to get a strong L9 and had a very low L8, again with marks out of kilter. One paper got almost full marks and the other was down in L6 territory. When the review came back it said ‘Misapplication if markscheme and signicantly and unacceptably harsh interpretation of markscheme’.
Sometimes schools have a detailed look at the breakdown and suggest a review. It happens when they spot these out of kilter marks or marks which just seem way off what was expected and the student doesn’t have a recollection of messing up. Sometimes they suggest it when there’s a significant difference in the rank order if students to what they’d expect. Ie Best student in large class is pretty much bottom. Something rings not quite right. But they always have to state that the mark can go down as well as up. That is a risk.
In an essay based subject, there’s probably more scope to misinterpret or misapply the markscheme. Clerical errors or missing of pages etc can happen in any subject.
Although many return unchanged and a few go down, I remain S nicked by how many errors are found and the fact that there will be loads more out there which are never picked up, sos rudeness with grades lower than they deserved. I get that examiners are extremely poorly paid (earning less than minimum wage once they factor in all the admin and other bits and bobs they have to do) and often very poorly trained and supervised. I get that many subjects and boards struggle to recruit and that funding means moderation isn’t as thorough as it could be. But it’s still hugely disappointing that most years in either A Level or degree, one subject or another has a set of anomolaus results, which gradually emerge to be down to a rogue marker or a couple fo rogue markers. And that even after X students have seen their marks jump up significantly, there is no automatic re-visit of that examiners marking in full unless the numbers in a centre meet a massive proportion. It means that it is known that there are likely more errors out there, but the will to address them isn’t really there. I know it’s due to poor funding and staff shortages, but given these grades determine next steps and might influence Uni offers and beyond, I think it remains a disgrace and so disappointing that it simply cannot be relied upon.