Help with GCSE exam question

[NonStopp]

can any examiners please help me with the marking of this question. My DC question on his paper was marked wrong

Question: What prompted the speaker to go back to school?

My DC answered - Her friend

Answer in mark scheme - Her friend persuaded her

would you mark this wrong or was it harshly marked?

I meant to say marking too strict and not positively. One examiner may have been more generous and another not. Sometimes it depends who marks your paper.

No, every examiner follows the mark scheme in exactly the same way.
If this were maths, it might be more obvious.

I’m not sure about every examiner, there are some inexperienced ones. My other DC had 4 questions marked wrong in a business paper which his teacher picked up as not using the mark scheme correctly so it has made me sceptical. We also have to accept
some human error but it has made parents more aware of how they have to have papers checked.

Well the past paper thing is true for all GCSEs tbf.

It's not about being word perfect - it's about answering the question. I know more about German and French - here's a snip of the MS for 2019 German GCSE:

You can see that there are acceptable answers - eg in the first qu, single parent, also only parent, single mother - but "only mother" is not accepted bc the word for "single parent" is key, and it's important that the student is able to distinguish between 'only' and 'alone' in German.

Similarly, with the third qu, "good sense of humour" is not the same thing as "funny" . A weaker candidate would just see the word Humor and write humorous but they are not fully understanding the text, or the question.

It really shouldn't depend on who marks your paper. Of course there are errors and I have certainly read about some shocking ones on MN; this is not one tho and if the MS were applied as it seems you would like, OP, then it would be an error.

I see that the MS says "her friend persuaded her" an acceptable answer - then that is the correct answer. Like in qu 2 of my example below - if you don't know what eifersuchtig means then you won't get the mark.

@clary Interesting
the German paper seems to have a bit more flexibility?
my child’s paper just has Answer and Reject.
it does not state; accept.
also why say Key Idea instead of answer?
The word idea make it sound like it is more of a guide rather than black and white as the word answer would make it sound.

sorry, I feel like I am dissecting everything now lol

well Key Idea is the main thing that needs to be in your answer. Accept means these ways of phrasing it/spellings (notice humor is specified as OK as well as humour) are acceptable; often the 'accept' column is not the full answer - so if the answer is 'make it on New Year's Eve' then Accept might also say 'do/create' would be OK but you'd still need the ref to NYE. I think it's pretty clear.

Reject is often something people will typically put which is wrong (such as 'professor' for professeur') You'll notice that some answers only have the Key Idea stated. If you didn't say jealous then no mark.

What board is your DC's exam - as they will vary as to how it is set out (just i am most familiar with AQA).

Just recognising the word friend doesn't show the student understood that the friend persuaded them. I am assuming this is why they didn't get the mark.

@clary

Thank you for sharing the German paper, interesting insight. It does show
to me though if it was a German question it may have been a simpler question for eg
who persuaded the student?
Answer would be simply: friend or her friend
rather than trying to translate the
word persuaded.
Also as I mentioned before, there is no accept column in our paper to offer a variety of answers or versions of, making it too strict in my opinion. Would you agree?

No I wouldn't agree. That was just a snapshot. The questions on any GCSE paper will vary in difficulty. One the same German paper there was a question where the key idea was 'they support her a lot' but 'they are understanding' was rejected; or one where the answer was 'place a tree at the window of unmarried women' (! a qu about traditional customs) which requires detailed understanding of three things - the tree, the window and the single woman.

The questions I snipped were easier ones from the start of the paper. I'm sure there was a range of questions on yr DC's paper

On a practical level, do you think that just two words ("Her friend") are worthy of a full mark? Do they convey understanding and comprehension? Surely you need a bit more verbosity than that. Not reams and reams, but more than that!

tbf @senua sometimes in MFL papers (and eng lang at the start of the paper! and maybe in other subjects too) one or two words might be sufficient; again in my example from AQA 2019 'jealous' will get you the mark for one question. The key skill is understanding enough to know what the question is asking and which words you need from the text. "Her friend" might well be a correct answer - but in this case it wasn't.

Personally I think you ought to try and zoom out from this grain of sand and look at the whole coastline - I sense that you will never accept anything other than your own very limited and literal view of this one point. It takes time to get your eye in - there is a lot to understand and gain some perspective on - have you looked at and understood the assessment objectives AO1, AO2, etc. You need to look at far more questions and mark schemes and perhaps more importantly, the examiners reports where the strengths and weaknesses of students responses are distilled down into feedback that teachers can try to take on board in order to improve their practice in line with whatever focus is trending - the sands are shifting all the time. Many of the same points come up year after year. The point about giving precise explanations is something that goes right through from about year 3/4 in primary education - this is nothing new - it is not subtle - the expectations are clearly expressed in the assessment objectives and in the mark schemes. Overly brief, imprecise, ambiguous answers are rarely acceptable.

Absolutely larkstar.

@larkstar
I didn't say I have not accepted it, just questioning it and welcoming others opinions that's why I asked for Examiners advice. I also said I was thankful for the feedback, I wasn't rejecting anyone's opinion.
I'm looking at it from all angles to understand further also asking generally about marking. As stated previously our teachers also expressed how they thought some papers were too hard and strictly marked.
I only showed one question.
I'm not an expert just a parent who is learning more with GCSE age children. All the info I can gather is useful for me.

I wonder whether part of the problem is when doing a GCSE in a 'community language' the students aren't properly prepped for the exam? It might be assumed they are good at the language already and just need a bit of guidance on harder things, so maybe the more basic question answering technique gets overlooked?