GCSE English Lit Teachers/AQA Examiners - Help a girl understand.

[Jbug66]

Hoping there's a GCSE English teacher/AQA examiner who can help.

The school asked us to request my son's English lit script as he was 2 marks off the grade boundary which we accepted. We found out today that they submitted it for a remark and his grade has gone up 2 levels to a 7 and gained an extra 20 points on the 2nd paper.

How does this happen? 20 extra marks seems like an awful lot to have been missed the first time around. Luckily for him it hasn't had any baring on sitting his A-Levels but can't help but think of other kids out there that may have missed out on a pass and now having to go through resits who could unknowingly be in the same position.

Paper 2 Lit marking is notoriously poor because it is a very long paper and because of the variety of text choices. Over four questions there is more margin for error.
it is unjust (like most things) on poorer students because you have to pay for re marks and the school will only likely pay for borderlines - around £50 is a lot of money to essentially bet on a remark.
it’s also unjust because some parents will have the know how to navigate the system and others won’t.

It could be that the marker has marked leanly across the paper. Or perhaps that marks for one question haven’t been added to the total at all.

It’s these very obvious errors that remarks are for.