Guidance

Marking and grading in GCSE and A level exams

Published 14 March 2013

This guidance was withdrawn on 16 August 2017

This document is a historical guide to how exams were marked but is now out-of-date.

Applies to England

1. This content is not current

This document has been withdrawn as it is out of date.

2. How exams are marked

Examiners mark exam questions either traditionally (pen and paper) or on-screen (electronically).

Each exam board has a team of examiners to mark their qualifications, led by a senior examiner. All examiners are trained and accredited to apply the marking standards in a common way. The quality of examiners’ marking is monitored by sampling their work. Examiners can be stopped from marking if their work falls below the required standard.

Qualifications are often made up of different sections, or topics, known as units. For units marked by teachers, such as GCSE controlled assessments, marks are moderated by the exam board. Moderation checks whether teachers’ marks have met the required standard. If marks have not met the required standard, then adjustments are made. Marks can be either increased or decreased through moderation.

3. How exams are graded

‘Grading’ is the process of turning marks into grades.

3.1 Raw marks and the Uniform Mark Scheme (UMS)

‘Raw marks’ are the number of marks scored on an assessment. The raw marks needed to achieve a particular grade can differ from year to year. This is because the difficulty of exam questions can change slightly from year to year.

Students’ raw marks are transferred onto the UMS. The uniform marks representing a particular standard (for example a strong grade C) will always be the same. The UMS ensures that fair standards are maintained from year to year. The uniform marks for each unit are added together to generate a final grade for the qualification as a whole.

3.2 Grade boundaries

‘Awarding’ is the process of how exam boards set grade boundaries (also known as cut scores or pass marks). Grade boundaries are set to ensure that standards are maintained from one year to the next.

When setting grade boundaries, exam boards consider:

• students’ work (their marked exam papers and any controlled assessment or coursework tasks)
• reports from senior exam officials about how well the units worked in practice
• examples of typical performance expected of students at certain grades (including grade descriptors)
• statistics (including predictions of how well the students being considered are expected to do and teachers’ estimated grades for their students)
• archived exam papers at the grade boundaries from previous exam series’

Grade boundaries are considered in a particular order for each unit. For example, in some GCSEs, the exam boards look at the boundary between grades C and D first. Next, the boundary between grades A and B is considered. Finally, the boundary between grades F and G is checked. All other boundaries are determined by calculation.

The following steps explain how grade boundaries are set.

3.3 Exam papers are inspected

Senior examiners individually look at a variety of student work. This work falls in the range of marks where they expect the grade boundary to be. The mark range has been recommended by a principal examiner and is supported by statistics. The senior examiners compare this work to examples of a similar standard from the previous year. They then fill in a ‘tick-sheet’ to record whether they think the student exam paper or piece of coursework should get the higher or lower grade being considered. For example, whether a grade C or D is most appropriate.

3.4 Judgements are collated

The individual examiners’ judgements are collated. A tick means that the examiner thinks the example of student work is worthy of the higher grade and a cross means they don’t think it is. A question mark means they have some doubts. A collated tick sheet might look something like this:

Mark	Chair of Examiners	Chief Examiner	Principal Examiner	Principal Examiner	Principal Examiner	Principal Moderator
54	✓✓✓	✓✓✓	✓✓✓	✓✓✓	✓✓✓	✓✓✓
53	✓✓✓	✓✓✓	✓✓?	✓?✓	✓?✓	✓✓✓
52	✗?✗	✓✗✗	✓✗✓	✓✗✓	✓✗✗	✓✗✗
51	✓✗✗	✓✗✗	✗✗?	✗✗✗	✗✗✗	✗✗✗
50	✗✗	✗✗	✗✗	✗✗	✗✗	✗✗

Presenting the information in this way helps awarders agree where the boundary should be set.

3.5 Upper and lower limiting marks are decided

The chair of examiners assesses the collated judgements to find the upper and lower limiting marks. The upper limiting mark is the lowest mark where awarders agree that the quality of work is worthy of the higher grade. The lower limiting mark is the highest mark where awarders agree that the quality of work is not worthy of the higher grade. The range between those marks is known as the ‘grey area’ or the ‘zone of uncertainty’.

The chair of examiners weighs up all the available evidence once the upper and lower limiting marks have been set. They then recommend a single mark for the grade boundary. This will usually lie within the grey area (in the example above: marks 51, 52 and 53). This provides a range of marks where it might be reasonable to set a grade boundary.

3.6 The grade boundary is set

The chair of examiners decides the exact position for the grade boundary. They do this after careful consideration and discussion with the rest of the examiners in the team. In the example above, the recommended boundary mark for the lowest mark that could achieve a grade C on this exam paper was 53.

Statistics are used to confirm that the boundary is comparable to the previous year and accurately reflects the past achievements of the students being considered. Once confirmed, the grade boundaries are applied to all papers in that unit.

Grade boundaries for each unit are combined to issue a qualification grade. This happens once a student has completed the entire course.