When do examiners finish marking

However, you can use our appeals process if you think that in reaching our results, we have failed to apply our procedures properly and fairly in arriving at our judgements, or if you think that we used procedures that were inconsistent with our Code of Practice.

Stage 1 of the Appeals process is carried out by senior members of Cambridge staff. Stage 2 is carried out by an independent panel.

Home Support and training for schools Support for teachers Understanding results Understanding results. On this page we will provide an overview of: How we work out a student's result Marking and moderation Grade thresholds and grades Enquiries about results. How we work out a student's result We work out a student's result in three stages: We mark each component that the student has taken. We use the term 'component' to refer to the individual assessments which make up the qualification such as exams and coursework.

We add these marks up, taking account of any weighting, to calculate their overall syllabus mark. We compare this overall mark to the syllabus grade threshold and convert this mark into their grade.

Back to the top of the page. Marking and moderation We mark exam papers in three different ways: Most multiple choice papers are answered on a machine-readable answer sheet. These papers are marked automatically. Most written papers are scanned and examiners mark them electronically on screen. The online system assigns papers randomly to examiners.

This means papers from your school are marked by different examiners. Some written papers are marked manually by examiners. Whole packets of papers from the same school are sent to one examiner to mark. To make sure all students' exam scripts are marked to the same standard, we: appoint experienced teachers to do the marking provide them with a mark scheme to tell them how to award marks train them to apply the mark scheme in the same way check their ability to mark to the required standard check their work during the marking period to make sure they continue to mark accurately.

Moderation of coursework Some coursework components are marked internally and moderated by teachers, and externally moderated by Cambridge. For a school, the internal marking process involves three main steps: teachers mark students' work using the mark scheme provided by Cambridge the school standardises the internal marking of its teachers for the component and places all their students into a single order of merit the school reports the marks and sends a sample of work to Cambridge.

Grade thresholds and grades We set grade thresholds for each syllabus using a mixture of statistical evidence and professional judgement. Working out a student's grade Once we have marks for each of the components a student has taken, we combine these marks into an overall total for the syllabus option they have taken.

Weighting The marks for some components are adjusted by a weighting factor please refer to the syllabus document. Component grades We do not report component grades to students because we do not use component grades to work out their syllabus grade.

Enquiries about results If you think a student's grade is incorrect, you can ask us to check our marking or moderation using our enquiry about results' EAR services. Professional judgement and tolerance When an enquiry about results is made, we correct any errors in objective marking. Outcomes from an enquiry about results We monitor the outcomes of enquiries about results for a number of reasons, including making sure that an examiner has not marked a substantial number of the papers from the same school incorrectly.

In an online system, marking progress is continually monitored and exam boards have the opportunity to intervene early to address issues of speed or quality. This helps the complex exercise of getting around 15 million scripts marked in a 3 month period. Most markers are teachers, and most are very experienced in both. The most common reason they start marking is to develop their understanding of how assessment works so they can better prepare their students.

We will be saying more about examiners in a subsequent blog. Marking agreement in England is very similar to that seen elsewhere in the world. We have compared marker agreement in 7 subjects with the research literature from around the world. Different question types have different levels of agreement between markers. Those questions requiring much longer responses generally have lower levels of marker agreement.

This is not surprising. Even after a lot of training of very experienced and knowledgeable markers we might still expect some differences of opinion rather than total agreement on the mark awarded. However, it is important to note that this is not to say that any mark is plausible or legitimate for an essay response. Exam boards and their markers should work hard to narrow the range of plausible marks, through good mark schemes and good examiner training.

Marker agreement in different subjects reflects the different types of questions in the papers. In Ofqual reports see figure 12 , the rank order of subjects by marker agreement is essentially a reflection of the degree to which the assessment takes place through essay-style questions. Those subjects with few or no essay questions tend to have better marker agreement. Marks do not have to be converted into grades. We could adopt a different system for reporting qualification outcomes on results slips or certificates.

Some assessments around the world choose these reporting methods. Where a student believes that the mark or grade is incorrect, they can request a Review of Marking or Moderation. It will provide you with key information about our processes and procedures. When you complete it, please let us know and we will set you up on our proprietary assessment system - IBIS. We will ask you to accept your contract and register your availability for two components — one early and one later.

This is a very important step as only examiners who registered as available are considered for marking. When registering for an examination session, you can make yourself available for additional material. We allocate work to examiners in January for the forthcoming May session, and targets are released to examiners around the middle of February. Please note that we cannot guarantee that you will receive a marking target.

If we are happy with your performance, we will offer you an automatic contract renewal for the following year - you only apply for an IB Examiner position once. Examiners who have successfully marked three May examination sessions may be invited to apply for the role of team leader.

Team leaders play a vital part in examining teams.