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Original poster

100% in A level humanities paper

35 replies

LaurelGrove · 19/08/2023 11:27

Just wondering how common this is, or even how it is actually achievable. Seems so unlikely to me based on what i recall from doing humanities subjects many years ago - how can an answer be perfect? DD tells me two of her friends got perfect scores on different papers (one in History, one in Classical Civilisation) and I'm intrigued. These are very smart kids so if anyone could, they could, but even so, it's quite a feat!

OP posts:
KnittedCardi · 19/08/2023 11:47

Not sure how common but DD got 100% on NEA's for History and Eng Lit and very high scores on some of her papers too. She got high HAT score for Oxbridge, but interviewed badly so didn't get a place. She is comfortably in first territory at Uni too, so some kids obvs just write well and as required.

Original poster
LaurelGrove · 19/08/2023 11:50

DD did get 100% for her NEA in one subject but i figured that made sense as she had plenty of time to review and check and edit. Still a great achievement, of course. But my mind boggles at doing it in an exam setting which (I assume) is the case here.

OP posts:
Mumofteenandtween · 19/08/2023 11:52

I did for one of my maths papers (in the 90s!) but that feels much easier than humanities. To get 100% in humanities feels almost impossible!

ZacharinaQuack · 19/08/2023 11:56

I did in French many years ago, and a friend did in English lit. I think for more subjective papers it just means you are working well above the level of the qualification you're taking, so there is nothing to mark you down on as you've exceeded requirements.

Natty83 · 19/08/2023 11:57

This is 20 years ago so I don't know if papers have changed but after an Eng Lit exam (unseen poetry) a friend and I were panicked that one of us had aced it and the other had failed because we had interpreted this poem completely differently! We both got 100% for that paper. Uni, different story, nobody ever got above 85%! The mark scheme at A Level was very "tick box".

InglouriousBasterd · 19/08/2023 12:00

I did in a history A level paper and an English literature, so it is possible (I was very surprised - knew they’d gone well but never that well!)

Gettinagoldtoof · 19/08/2023 13:54

I did - in an AS level paper I think for English. Meant that by A level for one unit I didn’t even read the book as I knew I’d get an a* just because of grades. Which sounds a bit nuts if I think about it now, still have a bit of an ‘efficient’ work ethic now…

lurchersforlife · 19/08/2023 15:36

I marked A level English lit papers up until a few years ago and we were instructed to use the full range of marks available, so it was absolutely possible to get full marks. A PP mentions exceeding the requirements, but that isn't necessary to gain full marks. To do that you just need to meet all the requirements of the top band of the mark scheme. My team leader said there are some responses you would want to give 40/25 to if you could, and others that you decide have merited 25/25. Both will obviously get 25, but there would be a vast difference between them.

SwedishEdith · 19/08/2023 15:42

I got 100% once for an OU essay (different marking scheme used by OU). My tutor's comments were that he couldn't see what I could have done to improve it so he was giving me full marks 😊

SuperSue77 · 19/08/2023 23:40

Do you mean mock papers? I didn’t think anyone got to know the percentages of their A levels - or have things changed since my day?

JanglyBeads · 19/08/2023 23:46

It's on the results sheet candidates get now, I was surprised too!

PatriciaHolm · 19/08/2023 23:49

SuperSue77 · 19/08/2023 23:40

Do you mean mock papers? I didn’t think anyone got to know the percentages of their A levels - or have things changed since my day?

Candidates routinely get their scores now yes. For example, DD knows she scored 87% on an RS paper. Her results came with scores and if they don't, you can ask.

SuperSue77 · 19/08/2023 23:54

PatriciaHolm · 19/08/2023 23:49

Candidates routinely get their scores now yes. For example, DD knows she scored 87% on an RS paper. Her results came with scores and if they don't, you can ask.

Show quote history

I never knew that! A friend mentioned that his daughter was only marginally off an A in one subject and I wondered how they knew this. Do they say what grade equates to an A, B etc or would they have worked that out based on the score of someone they knew who had got an A?

SuperSue77 · 19/08/2023 23:55

And I meant to say thanks for answering! @PatriciaHolm

justanothernamechangemonday · 19/08/2023 23:58

I got 100% for both Business & Finance and English Lit in the early 00's. B&F I understood, Eng Lit less so - I hadn't actually read all of the book the essay question was on, I'd watched the film and based it on that Blush

Unexpectedlysinglemum · 19/08/2023 23:59

I got 100% in one of my English

burnoutbabe · 20/08/2023 00:02

I got 97% on the law gcse I did a few years ago as a mature student.

The mark scheme is as probably x marks for saying xyz plus award marks for any reasonable answer.

(And 96% fir recent professional exam which awarded 1 mark for each relevant answer so you could get 100% by just writing a lot of on point short responses in the 3 hours (which wasn't hard as a professional with 25 years experience versus the usual student trainee)

surreygirl1987 · 20/08/2023 00:18

I teach English Lit, and some of my pupils got 100% in one of their English papers this year. I'm also an examiner and I do give some papers full marks. I got full marks myself when I was doing my A Levels but that was a long time ago!

PatriciaHolm · 20/08/2023 00:18

@SuperSue77 candidates now get their scores, and the score boundaries for each grade are published on the day of results, so they can work out easily how close they were to the boundary. Can be vital for some who just miss a grade and want to go for a review of marking.

MrsALambert · 20/08/2023 00:25

My brother got 100% on a history A level paper. I took the same paper a few years later... safe to say I did not get the same score. I got 5%. We do joke that we both hold records at our school for history though

imip · 20/08/2023 00:57

Dd got 4 marks short of full marks for RE GCSE last year - sat a year early while out of school for MH reasons. I sat in on a couple of sessions marking her mocks sat at home with RE teacher. I can easily see how it can happen by looking at the marking scheme. Also easy to see how a great answer could lose marks if SPAG marks are awarded.

She returned to school this year and school outsourced some marking. Again in humanities, Dd was getting full marks and I can entirely see how this can happen as they need to mark according to the marking scheme.

Who knows how it will end up next Thursday, but for DD the way she writes sometimes looks like she isn’t properly using capital letters - this would be an issue in subjects that award SPAG marks. I assume the same holds here for a levels.

illiterato · 20/08/2023 01:04

I imagine for humanities it’s possibly a reflection that a few candidates are just way above the required/ expected level of both knowledge and critical/ analytical thought - ie obvious wider reading, and writing that is more like undergrad than A level.

Drfosters · 20/08/2023 09:20

I got 100% in an A-level economics paper in late 90s. It’s not that odd as the exams have a mark scheme and as long as you make the points the mark scheme covers you get the marks. It is actually not very subjective at all.

Original poster
LaurelGrove · 20/08/2023 09:23

Thanks everyone, that is very interesting. I had always thought of 100% as a perfect answer but I can see if it is "has met all requirements of the mark scheme" then it's perfectly possible.

OP posts:
caringcarer · 20/08/2023 09:36

Years ago when A levels were 6 units of exams I taught a student who got 100 on 5 of his unit exams and 96 on the other paper. He was in top 3 marks in the country that year.

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