Language oral exam remark/review

[massistar]

Does anyone know if it's possible to get a review/remark of an oral a-level exam for Spanish? DS got a B and a C in his written papers but an E in his oral which brought it down to a D overall. He's a very confident speaker so it's surprising. It was marked by his college teacher and I had an email complaining that he'd skipped a few classes but that he'd done well in his oral so sounds fishy. First contact with his college had said that you can't get a review of an oral exam which doesn't seem right.

Which exam board is it?

WJEC

Ah WJEC, I was wondering why his teacher had marked it. Do you know if the final mark was the one originally awarded by the teacher? If this works as it used to in England, a selection of oral recordings will be called in and moderated by the exam board. Might even be all of them if it’s a small cohort.

I never had anything moderated down but it can happen, hence my question. How did he think it went?

I don’t know the WJEC spec or rules well enough, but at first glance I am surprised if no review is possible.

Thanks @clary . He thought the oral went well so was shocked at the E. He's expecting a call back from the exam officer at the college tomorrow morning to confirm but seems odd that they'd say no way of reviewing.

I'm not sure about the moderation. Assuming the final grade was the teachers one.

Not necessarily. The tapes are sent away fir external moderation,

I’ve just checked, and WJEC like AQA in England has the speaking assessment, while it is conducted by the teacher, marked externally. In fact the assessment is very similar to the AQA one. So I’m not sure why he thinks it was marked by his teacher.

I cannot find anything in the WJEC info online that says specifically that speaking exams cannot be reviewed tho, so I would push the college on this.

Thanks Clary. Will update once he's spoken to the exam officer.

Hi @massistar ! I'm sorry to hear about your son's Spanish oral exam.

We had a similar challenge a few years ago, albeit with a different board. We were told that oral marks 'never' change, something made worse by the oral exam being conducted by a Senior Examiner.

As it happened, in that case the written grammar marking errors and the written vocabulary marking errors were corrected quite quickly on the re-mark and the overall grade was upgraded to what our daughter though she had earned. So I didn't pursue an oral exam re-mark. The oral exam's mark was horribly low, though and inexplicably so!

I hope you are able to appeal and that you have some luck with it!

Just a quick update. We eventually managed to get DS's oral remarked. It's been increased by 21 marks and gone from an E on that paper to a C, increasing his overall grade from a D to a C. It's not been material as he got his place at uni anyway but so chuffed. Shocked that they got it so badly wrong though.