Grading of exams and essays (Arts)

Bit late to be asking this now..... but why are Arts subjects basically marked out of 70? If I submit a perfect essay which couldn't be any better, I get 70. Only a few people every year get 70 in an essay. Whereas my friend doing Engineering says everything is graded out of 100. So while getting a first isn't easy, it isn't practically impossible like it is in an Arts subject. He regularly gets upwards of 80% in projects and exams, which in my subject is impossible. Getting a first in Arts is then equal to getting 100% in a non Arts subject, no? Since you basically have to be perfect to get 70%. So say for something like Schols, it's surely much much more difficult for an Arts student to get them than say a Science student. How is this allowed?

ilovemybrick

if you are an arts student you are studying a subjective discipline. there is no right and wrong.
firsts are doable. just needs more than secondary school level thought.
schols being an exception firsts are mainly research based. ie better research gets better results.

Tacitha

It's not officially the case any more that Arts subjects are marked out of 80, but they were for a long time. Never heard of marking out of seventy, but I know of many lecturers who had effective limits of 75. A seventy can't mean perfect if there are even a few people getting more than that, so it looks like you're just coming up against a combination of hard marking and the old system.

There are some arguments in favour of grading out of 80 - if a first can be anything from 70 to 100, the average grade is seriously skewed by one high first. There are also solutions to that - a few departments now "stretch" firsts by turning a final grade of 71 to 73, 72 to 76, 80 to 100 etc (multiply difference by three), having first marked component parts out of 80.
I think they should redraw the grade boundaries, make a first 85/90 to one hundred, and have the other grades in equal bands.

But what department are you in? End-of-year marks in each course should be out of one hundred wherever you are, and whatever method your examiners use to move between the two systems. That's been a college regulation since at least 2004. I can't think of any dept that hasn't signed up to that, nominally at least, but marking habits are hard to change. I'm not sure you'd actually get more firsts if your dept did implement the new system properly - a marker in the arts subjects would probably decide the grade first and the mark next. But it might be worth asking your undergraduate director of teaching and learning for reassurance that the right system is in place - if it isn't, that might wake them up a bit.

I'm in TSM - Languages. As far as I'm aware, 70 is the top mark. When someone says they got a First in an essay, they mean they got 70, since nobody ever seems to get higher. A couple of years ago I got the highest mark in my class in the end of year exams with 70%. I have seen the odd person getting say 75% in my other subject (I've dropped it now) but never higher. It just seems absolutely unfair to me because getting a First is almost impossible. They must be still using the old marking system. A lecturer will rave about your essay and say it was brilliant, and give you 65% expecting you to be thrilled. I regularly get work back with '13/20' written in the top along with 'Excellent!' I find it quite bizarre. If it's excellent why aren't they giving say 19/20?

PHB

You can get up to 80, nobody really gets above that in Arts.

If you get a first, you normally get around 70-72. If you get a good first, i.e. your essay is pretty much perfect, you get 73-76. If you essay is actually groundbreaking and original, you get 76-82.

70 is not the top mark.
I know people in languages who have gotten 80's.

p.s. If you are in first or second year, you probably won't be getting many firsts, simply because, you haven't progressed to the right level yet. If you do, you are doing great.

Tacitha

Is it French? Then you have the added complication of resonance of the French system, where 16/20 is pretty much as good as it gets!

French dept officially marks out of 100. See the TSM handbook page 16. (attached). German and Spanish both claim to too. They have no choice anyway. This wasn't the case some years ago, when many arts depts officially marked out of 80, which wasn't really a problem. Unofficially marking out of eighty, however, is all wrong.

A 65 though, is a II.1. Even if they mark out of 100, it will still be a 65 and a II.1. This question really only affects marks of 70+, and a 65 may well be excellent by the standard of whoever's grading your paper. Particularly in the French department

This business about arts being out of 80 is okay for homework during the year, but not for exams: that's against regulations. The problem is that it's impossible to call anyone's bluff on this - because there's no evidence - a 70/80 looks the same as a 70/100 (they're both 'percentages' after all). So if you ask someone if they've marked out of a hundred, they have only to say yes. Unless you still have multiple choice/cloze tests in the grammar section? Because there the grading would be transparent. And you could call up your script and check.

If you are really concerned about this, I think that you should gather a group of friends, pay a visit to the school of languages director of undergraduate teaching and learning, ask whether this policy is being applied, and ask that the matter be raised at school/dept meetings. These things can just be a matter of poor communication, and it really helps when students take the initiative. Your director of teaching and learning is Susanna Bayo, and if she isn't around, you could try the head of school - all contact details are here .

Tacitha

Oh and it doesn't matter for schols because a first is a first, and a majority of firsts (rather than an average first) should get you schol at the arts end. That's probably why the majority rule exists, actually.

(Though if the component parts of a script are being marked out of 100 rather than 80 - which is optional under the new system, I think, your chances of getting a first in that paper would increase a little. That being said, I suspect that a grader who felt the quality was too uneven for an overall first would simply readjust the marks).

Attractive Nun

A friend of mine just got 94% in a sociology essay - an essay which did count towards our grade, so it's clearly not impossible to get a high first in arts. It does seem horribly difficult, though.

Tacitha

The thing is that all arts subjects officially mark out of a hundred, but there are a good few that tacitly mark out of 80.
I have known people get 100% in English, but I've never seen a grade above 75% from a French exam. Social sciences made the transition a bit earlier I think.

claire h

I have known people get 100% in English

Really? I once heard tell of someone who got a 90 in an English essay, and it's the kind of tale that gets told in hushed, awed tones of envy, incredulousness and despair...

Oh and it doesn't matter for schols because a first is a first, and a majority of firsts (rather than an average first) should get you schol at the arts end. That's probably why the majority rule exists, actually.

I thought that was BESS? Arts are mostly on the overall-first thing, afaik.

The firsts thing in arts is crazy. On the flipside, you have to go to extraordinary lengths to actually fail an arts subject. But still... even if a first is 70+, it's still bizarre being told 'well done' with a mark in the 60s if it's supposed to be out of 100. I think lecturers who've been there for a while are particularly reluctant to give marks higher than 70 if they're going to give a first at all, and especially to students in the early stages of their degree; I guess the idea is that you *shouldn't* be doing well at the beginning because they have yet to impart all of their wisdom and whatnot. :rolleyes:

Tacitha

claire h wrote:

Really? I once heard tell of someone who got a 90 in an English essay, and it's the kind of tale that gets told in hushed, awed tones of envy, incredulousness and despair...

Worse. She got 100% in a schol English exam, and didn't get schol!

I thought that was BESS? Arts are mostly on the overall-first thing, afaik

.

Moderatorship and schol are supposed to be judged on a paper count, but it rarely actually makes a difference, and an examiners' meeting has to adjust the grades to make the average match the paper count, strictly speaking.

The older lecturers will have marked out of 80 for years, and are also aware of problems with marking out of 100 which didn't exist with the older system(it distorts the average). So they might well in some cases be drawn towards the older system, especially given that no-one can tell the difference.

Are you the Claire H who got schol?

claire h

Tacitha wrote:

Worse. She got 100% in a schol English exam, and didn't get schol!

...

Are you the Claire H who got schol?

I am indeed. Still wondering what exactly my lecturers were smoking at the time they marked my stuff. Though there was nothing near 100% in any of my English papers... gosh, that's a depressing story. Eeek.

Tacitha

Great - well done!

claire h

Thanks.

I'm in 4th year. Yes I know I should have considered this before! I'm absolutely sure that none of my essays or exams (which are essay exams anyway) have ever been marked out of 100. Otherwise, if you did a great translation, you'd get 90+%, when in reality, nobody ever gets over 70%. It might be different for these exams but I don't know why they'd mark all your practice essays/translations one way and then do it differently in the exams. Maybe they do. I should probably e-mail the head of dept and find out.

I'm thinking the reason is that since it is an Arts subject, we're not really working with percentages the same way as in other subjects since you can't be right or wrong. It's purely the marker's opinion of your essay/translation since it's pretty much impossible to 'count' the number of mistakes or whatever. So they might just read your essay, get an overall view and go 'that's a First' or 'that's a 2:1', and not care too much about the actual percentage. Maybe they don't see a reason to give over 70%, even if it's the best essay ever written. Thinking about it, that makes sense.

Tacitha

Alicia Faithful Jelly wrote:

I'm thinking the reason is that since it is an Arts subject, we're not really working with percentages the same way as in other subjects since you can't be right or wrong. It's purely the marker's opinion of your essay/translation since it's pretty much impossible to 'count' the number of mistakes or whatever. So they might just read your essay, get an overall view and go 'that's a First' or 'that's a 2:1', and not care too much about the actual percentage. Maybe they don't see a reason to give over 70%, even if it's the best essay ever written. Thinking about it, that makes sense.

Well that's what makes it impossible to tell whether they're marking out of one hundred or not. But if they don't see a reason to mark over 70 ever, for the best essay ever written, then they are indeed marking out of seventy. And that just isn't allowed. I agree that thinking in broad bands is the only way you can grade in arts - that's a high 2:1 etc., but if we have a thirty point area to play around within a first, we're acknowledging at least that there's such thing as a high first, a medium first etc. Since they do give out a few firsts a year (and they're not really going to be perfect), are they arguing that all firsts given are of exactly the same quality? It doesn't work.

Grolschevik

I'd say that the actual numerical grades shouldn't count. If you've a first, then you've a first. Doesn't matter to anyone whether it's a 70 or a 90. A first is a first, and I think it's true that lecturers and examiners think in terms of broad grades (as in, "that's a good 2.2, I'll give her 58").

The problem comes at the examiners' meeting: some examiners always want to go with the pure arithmetic average, which in a multi-disciplinary course like BESS, favours those who did well in "right/wrong answer" subjects rather than the more philosophical or subjective. Or it might mean that someone who gets firsts in several subjects is brought way down by a crappy result in one subject.

Others prefer the "grade count": as in "out of all the exams Jimmy did, 4 out of 5 of them are 1st class, so we'll give him a first". Irrespective of whether Jimmy's firsts were 70s or 97s.

Depends on the subject, depends on the marking criteria.

John

Would things like this not make a difference when you leave college and look for a PhD? If you were being marked out of 70 so that the highest mark you got was a 70 and you were going for a position against another candidate from another university where they mark properly, they would look like a better student on paper.

punka

It does make a difference if you're applying for graduate school. I know if you're applying for funding from the AHRC council in the UK, they rank you according to whether you got a "bare first", a "solid first", or an "outstanding first" - or something similar, I can't remember the exact wording - but apparently there are 3 different types of first, at least according to the AHRC.

the smiley one

Just want to pitch in my two cents...

I do German as part of my degree and I know for a fact that my language paper is marked out of 80 i.e. they put 100 marks on the paper, divide it by five and multipy it by 4. So it is physically impossible to get 80+ (although definitely possible to get a first)

As far as I can gather, the first thing is completely at the markers discretion with regards to other arts subjects. There seems to be a general cap on the marks at about 75/76...but I just heard on someone recently getting 88 in a history essay. An erasmus student.

Puts us all to shame, doesn't it.

ApeXaviour

Getting a first in Arts is then equal to getting 100% in a non Arts subject, no?

No, quite simply. Nobody get's 100% in any technical exams (proper annuals, overall). Just because you can get in the 80's doesn't mean it's easy or happens that often. Projects, labs, tutorial sheets etc. many people would tend to get to get over 70, but usually this merely boosts them from doing not so well in exams.

Alicia Faithful Jelly wrote:

It just seems absolutely unfair to me because getting a First is almost impossible.

I would say it's equivalently difficult in more technical degrees. For example, last years physics graduating class had two 1sts, the year before had one... Oh yeah you do hear about the odd person scoring 85 or 90%, but they're, without a doubt, the exception.

While you're correct in saying you're either "right or wrong", it's really not so simple. A lot more work goes into setting the papers rather than correcting, which I believe is more the reverse for arts subjects. Correcting a technical paper is a matter of rote. Setting the paper though... From my experience, in a lot of questions or sections the difficulty would incline. What I mean is you'd have a doable part, a difficult part, and sometimes a seemingly impossible part that only special rain-man-esque savants can figure out. It's f**king hard to get a 1st in the sciences.

Nietzschean

speaking of exceptionals, guy in my class last year averaged something like 99.8% in his finals!

King.Penguin

It's not unheard of for people in my course (zoology) to get 100% in one of our papers (statistics used in biology). It's kinda like a maths exam. i don't know what qualifies as a technical subject.

Pet

It kinda irritates me when Arts students say things like "Oh, it's so easy to get a first in science, but it's really hard for us, moan, whinge, oh the humanity, etc". The difficulty curve would be a different shape from 55-65%, but it rises steeply from there. You don't just learn and regurgitate in science, certainly not in the Sophister years. You have to know your stuff, and be able to manipulate and adapt it.

It is certainly possible to get 90% in physics or maths, for example, but that doesn't mean it's easy. It's probably also due to perception; Arts students think it's impossible to get over 70%, so they don't do the work required to get into the 80-90% bracket, whereas physical scientists know it is possible, albeit with tremendous work, and so some of them do it.

Pet, the fact is, it IS impossible to get 90% when your lecturers mark out of 70. It has nothing to do with perception. I never implied that any idiot could get a first in Science, but it is perfectly possible to get well over 70%, and not unusual either as far as I know. My flatmate in 2nd year regularly got around 90% in modules. She was smart and I'm sure she worked very hard, but blatantly there is much more chance of getting a high first when you are able to get a maximum of 100% in a paper rather than 70%. It has nothing to do with how hard you work. A girl in my class who's REALLY intelligent and ridiculously studious (max points in the leaving, got Schols, etc) never got over 70% in anything.

There seems to be a general cap on the marks at about 75/76

Yes there definitely is and this isn't fair. Jokes aside, it isn't possible that almost everyone doing Arts is so thick/lazy they can't manage any more than that. Your paper that is marked out of 80 should be marked out of 100. Where is the justification in not doing so?

This is becoming a problem now because I notice some Masters courses want a 'high first', which is pretty much impossible from Trinity Arts courses, at least my course. My friends in English unis are getting 90% for stuff I'd get 70% in and they're the first to say it isn't fair. I just got used to Trinity style marking, thinking it didn't matter as long as I got the 2:1 or 1st or whatever but now it's becoming clear that the actual percentage matters. 65% is considered very good to my lecturers but not to someone who is thinking '65 out of 100'. An American girl in my class a few years ago was very upset at seeing 65% and said it was the worst mark she'd ever received! We explained that it was actually really good for the French dept, and she had to call her college in the States and explain about the 'grade deflation' which is really what it is. They are blatantly NOT marking out of 100.

And for more proof, when I was on Erasmus I got 10/10, a perfect score in several subjects. This was converted by my dept to 70% proving that 70 is considered the maximum mark. If they were marking properly, obviously it should have been 100. I'm aware that it's much easier to get 7/10 than 70% in Trinity which is why I didn't contest it at the time, but that's when I didn't realise they were supposed to be marking out of 100 and wasn't thinking about my transcript.

Edwardius

ApeXaviour wrote:

For example, last years physics graduating class had two 1sts, the year before had one... Oh yeah you do hear about the odd person scoring 85 or 90%, but they're, without a doubt, the exception.

A few things, those firsts were awarded to some pretty unique humans. from talking to some folk in the business, in order to get 70 you need to answer perfectly. Anything above that comes from going above and beyond the scope of the exam question and course material and basically saying in examination form that you are well and truly king dick. Now the lyrical and linguistic waxers may well have been crying foul on this but have they looked into whether the same applies to arse subjects? Or was it a case of "daddy, the bad man gave me a 2.1, does he not loike, know who we are?" The reality is that you can never have enough done for an exam unless you're of the sort that makes water get you pissed.

Tacitha

On the high firsts for applications, this was one of the reasons given for 'reforming' the grading regulations in the arts end, although having but not applying the rule has left some people in the worst of both worlds. There are a couple of ways you can get around the requirement for a high first, though, if you're in one of the compressed firsts arts subjects.

First is that you should give your class ranking, and number of firsts awarded - e.g. "there were 30 in the class, 4 firsts, I was ranked 2nd".

Second is that you explain the requirement for a high first to a referee in your department, and ask them to explain in their reference what exactly a 71 signifies. They will normally be keen to make the point that their standards are so high that a 71 indicates sheer genius. Many application forms will also ask them to rank applicants in top 2%, 5%, 20% etc, and most universities will be aware that marks mean different things in different places.

As for departments that are clearly breaking their own and college rules - I would take it up at school level, director of undergrad teaching and learning. Since a few of the language depts seem to be implicated, this might be a case where the schools structure works in your favour.

claire h

ApeXaviour wrote:

For example, last years physics graduating class had two 1sts, the year before had one... Oh yeah you do hear about the odd person scoring 85 or 90%, but they're, without a doubt, the exception.

That's an overall mark, though. To get an overall mark in the 80s or 90s is, I am sure, immensely difficult regardless of what you're doing, but I suspect that overall firsts in the hard sciences tend to come from a much wider range of specific marks (within the 60-100 range) than arts firsts do (say 65-75, because if you've no exceptionally high marks to bring up your II.1s then you need to be getting close enough to 70 in most of your work). So from that perspective, if you've a decent chance of getting a first that's in the 80s rather than the 70s on some of your exams/assignments/whatever, it's easier to get an overall first in the hard sciences (in terms of the way that the marking's done rather than the actual level of work put in).

Pet wrote:

Arts students think it's impossible to get over 70%, so they don't do the work required to get into the 80-90% bracket...

Ah, that's unfair. The idea that 70 is a cut-off point comes as much from the staff as it does from the students in a lot of cases. When the lecturers themselves are talking about how it's easier to get a first in the hard sciences than in arts.... well, regardless of the origin of that idea, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

shay_562

Simply from doing both maths-based subjects next to waffly arts crap in the first couple of years, it certainly does seem that the capacity to get an exceptionally high mark in technical subjects is greater than in essay-based ones, if for no other reason than a maths & stats paper can't exactly look for arbitrary measures of "higher-level thinking", and as such can't mark you down for not having them. That said, I've come a lot closer to failing the more technical subjects, whereas I've never once worried about failing an essay-based one - in some subjects, I'd say you'd nearly have to actively try and fail. I half-remember hearing something about 50% or so of the JS Chemistry class failing their exams last year - while this may or may not be accurate, it's still reflective of the fact that the difficulty in gaining a high first in arts subjects is somewhat offset by the increased security of them. Most of the repeats in 1st year BESS were in maths, because that's the only one it's really possible to fail.

On the whole, though, I have to agree with Alicia Faithful Jelly's point - it's really not fair for the schools to mark out of 70-80 while nominally marking out of 100 simply because that's the way they're used to doing things, or because they've got some idea in their heads that it makes the college appear more illustrious to have harder standards, or whatever the hell else.

King.Penguin

My problem with essay based exams is that they are a judge of your essay writing skills and your knowledge and understanding of the subject. In an exam I always attempt to write too much, have a really bad structure, make regular spelling and grammatical mistakes and have poor writing. My hand often becomes sore/tired half-way through a tough exam and this exacerbates the previously mentioned problems. I will never get a 1st for an answer, regardless of my knowledge/understanding.

however, it was able to use a basic word processor, something which identified incorrect spellings (not even correct them for you) and was able to reread and correct the essay I would be a lot closer to getting a first class answer. When I reread an essay and come across mistakes, it's actually very bad for the image of the paper to try tipexing out stuff or scribbling out stuff.

I think pen and paper exams are archaic and are simply there because they are traditional. if college could actually had enough computers to allow people the option to type the exams I think it would benefit the examiners and the examinees. Of course, there are people who prefer to write then type, I'm just not one of them.