Marking Review

Why is a marking review necessary?

Throughout the marking process every effort is made to ensure that all the marks awarded are accurate and consistent. Examiners who are identified as unreliable are told to stop marking and all their examination scripts are re-marked by a reliable examiner. Nevertheless there may be odd cases where the senior examiners or awarding body officer have lingering doubts about the accuracy of some of the marking. For example they may suspect that an examiner or marker is slightly unreliable in their marking of a particular question or in their application of a particular marking criterion. The suspected inconsistency is not extreme enough to warrant a total re-mark of all the work marked by the examiner concerned but some form of review is deemed advisable. Such cases are referred to the marking review for the specification.

When does the marking review happen?

The marking review takes place after the awarding committee for the specification has completed its work and all the grade boundaries have been signed off by the accountable officer. The awarding body officer for the specification processes all candidates' grades in preparation for the marking review. The senior examiners and awarding body officer are then able to see the provisional component or unit grades and the overall grade for each candidate who has taken the syllabus, and in particular for candidates marked by any examiners about whom they have identified doubts.

What happens at the marking review?

The purpose of the marking review is to ensure that all cases of unreliable marking are identified and that appropriate remedial action is taken. At the marking review, which may last several days, teams of senior examiners review the marking of any 'lingering doubt' examiners who have been identified. They do not re-mark the full allocation of scripts marked by such an examiner but target their re-marking to the best effect. They may check and re-mark particular questions or aspects of an examiner's marking. They may review scripts in a particular mark range if they suspect that this is where the examiner has had problems with accuracy. Or, at a GCSE marking review, they may review the work of candidates whose overall marks fall just short of the mark required for a Grade C.

Other cases

The marking review may consider cases other than examiners about whom they have doubts. For example, they may review scripts from a school or college where the provisional grades differ significantly from the grades that the centre's teachers estimated for their candidates. They may also review the grades in a range of special consideration cases eg candidates affected by illness, absence from one of the examination papers, lost coursework.

After the marking review

When the senior examiner has re-marked a script and awarded a different mark from the original mark, the senior examiner's revised mark (which may be higher or lower than the original mark) is entered onto the awarding body's computer and the candidate's overall mark is re-calculated. In some cases this leads to a change of component or unit and/or overall grade for the candidate.

Very occasionally the marking review may lead senior examiners to have severe concerns about an examiner's marking. In such cases the examiner's work is re-marked in full in order to ensure that the candidates' final marks and grades are accurate.

Quality assurance

In essence the marking review is therefore a final stage of the quality assurance process for marking which seeks to ensure that every grade awarded for the specification concerned is as fair and accurate as possible.