Discrepancies in Marking

[Conquertheworld]

Hey all,

I understand that 2 examiners mark your exam, and a 3rd examiner is called in to mark the exam if there is too big of a discrepancy in marks. Does anyone know what this discrepancy is? I heard it's 2 WHOLE grades (ie. A and C - VCAA does not take "+" into consideration). Can someone confirm this?!

Thanks all!

[thushan]

I'm not sure about online marked exams, but I believe it's a discrepancy of about 5-10 marks or something over the whole paper.

[watto_22]

I heard it's 2 WHOLE grades (ie. A and C - VCAA does not take "+" into consideration). Can someone confirm this?!

The discrepancy is far less than two grades. That would be a HUGE variation. I really hope the markers are more consistent than that!


My Dad used to mark the VCE English papers (not sure exactly when, maybe 2004-2010).
Each essay is given a score out of 10 by each marker.
If these scores differ by 2 or more (eg 9&6, 10&8, 5&2 but not 8&7, 6&5 etc) then the essay is marked by the third marker - the Chief Examiner for English.
This third ruling is final.

In English, each essay is marked twice, so the third examiner's mark is doubled to give the total score for that essay.



My Mum marked VCE biology for the past few years (maybe 2007-2013).
I'm not sure exactly how many marks' discrepancy is required, but something from 5-10 sounds about right Thushan.
However, I can say that only the discrepancy over the entire paper is considered, not the discrepancy for individual questions. (Eg - if on a 3 mark question, 1st Marker gives 0 marks & 2nd Marker awards 3 marks; this individual question will not be reviewed)
If there is a significant enough discrepancy in the overall mark for the paper, then a third marker - once again the Chief Examiner - will mark the exam. This third ruling is final, and again will be doubled to award the eventual score.



This might make it sound like the Chief Examiners will be marking A LOT of papers.
But in reality, all the markers attend workshops to discuss the marking scheme devised by the Chief Examiner, and it is pretty uncommon for there to be a serious discrepancy in overall mark.
It is also in the best interests of the individual markers for their marks to match up with the second marker's - if the Chief Examiner is frequently required to settle discrepancies, then those wayward markers may not be offered a job to mark exams in future years. Thus, as if they should need a reason, each marker will do their best to mark as per the marking scheme and hence as per the other markers, for fear of losing their job. Markers do get paid for marking the exams..

[M_BONG]

I was told this year that in Legal Studies the discrepancy/leeway allowed is 3 marks only, by my teacher.

 Not sure about other subjects as I have never asked. A difference of 2 grades sounds ridiculous and doubt that is true.

[Conquertheworld]

I was told this year that in Legal Studies the discrepancy/leeway allowed is 3 marks only, by my teacher.

 Not sure about other subjects as I have never asked. A difference of 2 grades sounds ridiculous and doubt that is true.

I very much doubt it's 3 marks...there will almost definitely be a discrepancy of 1-2 and highly likely that it'll be at least 3...and I doubt the chief examiner will mark so many exams again.

[meganrobyn]

**Caveat: Some subjects may deviate from this!

The discrepancy tolerance changes each year depending on the average agreement across the examiners that year. If there is lots and lots of perfect agreement, then fairly small disagreement will go to third marking; if there is less perfect agreement that year, the discrepancy will need to be a little larger to activate a third marking. They're more looking for outliers and weird anomaly markings. In terms of 'control' marking, though, you really are expected to be bang on or one mark either side - the expected standard for agreement in marks is pretty high.

Also, the third marker isn't just the Chief Assessor - that would be a crazy workload. It's done by a small subset of experienced assessors, including the CA.

The third mark isn't the absolute one you get - it's used as another point from which to get agreement. Assuming the third mark is close to one of the first two, you will get the average of the two closest (unless there's still an issue, in which case it gets sent up).

[Stick]

Yeah, remember that assessors for some subjects get fake exams with a predetermined mark attached to them and if they mark inaccurately, they are in jeopardy of losing their jobs.

[Professor Polonsky]

Yeah, remember that assessors for some subjects get fake exams with a predetermined mark attached to them and if they mark inaccurately, they are in jeopardy of losing their jobs.

That's correct.

In English, I have been told by exam markers (well, my teachers) that a remark is required in ~5% of essays. Assuming 40,000 kids around the state do English (slightly more, but this'll keep the calculations simple), that's 120,000 essays. 5% of that is 6000 essays. I really don't think the Chief marks so many.