Reviewing papers

student18

Got 495. Course last year was 505. Was reading Brian Mooney in Irish Times. He said if you are quite close to course points it may be a good idea to get all papers reviewed with teacher, this costs nothing, as if you are for e.g. 1% off next grade you may get an upgrade if it is warranted. Also it may be in a paper that you were not expecting an upgrade. What if your teacher is not available and you don't know another one in that subject, also if they are available and do not correct papers themselves??. Don't want to go down this road if I was downgraded. What do you think

rainbowtrout

Only 3 papers were downgraded in the whole of the country last year so that scenario is extremely unlikely.

This is what I would suggest as a course of action.

Get your form in to review all papers first.

Then go and ask your teachers if they will accompany you, if they will all the better. If they can't/won't perhaps ask another teacher (nicely) of that subject in the school if they would be able to help. There are two teachers for my subject in the school, I always go in, the other teacher doesn't, so invariably I end up viewing scripts from the other class. I don't mind doing this, but of course each teacher is different.

Remember that most teachers are qualified in two subjects, so a teacher coming to view a maths paper with you might agree to look over a geography paper with you if they also teach it, even if they didn't have you for geography and your own geography teacher won't be attending. At the very least they might be able to help you interpret the marking scheme and how it was applied to your answers.

When you go in on the evening you might see teachers there who you weren't expecting to see and they might agree to help you. The key to all of this is ask nicely, and you may have success.


Now the viewing itself, this is what I would recommend.

There is usually a grid on the front of your answer book where all your questions are listed off and the marks beside them. Total this first and check does it match the total on the bottom of the page.

Check that the correct number of questions were included in the total and any other restrictions that are in place. E.g. if there are three sections on the paper and you have to answer 1 question in each section out of a choice of two and you answer all six questions that you then don't just pick out the three highest marks out of the six, that you pick the highest mark out of each section when you do the total. Some people forget these type of restrictions when appealing.

Next: check the totals on each question that you have answered and check if it matches with the total that was filled in on the grid on the front of your answer book. Two possible errors here: mistake in addition in the question, OR question added correctly inside the answer book but transcribed incorrectly onto the marks grid on the front.


Once you are satisfied with all of that, go through each question in the answer book and compare your answers to those in the marking scheme, note if you have been given all the marks allocated and the correct marks for each part.

So say for a question where it asks you to list the first four letters of the alphabet and each one is worth 3 marks and you list A, B , C and D, and are only awarded 9 in total, then there's an error.

You are not allowed bring a pen into the room with you as you could change your paper, so I would suggest leaving a notebook or refill pad outside the room and if you see something wrong like anything above, go out and write it down and come back in.

E.g. 'Q2a I wrote down 4 correct letters but was only awarded marks for three of them, and the marking scheme awards marks for four.

Continue through your paper until you are satisfied you have checked each question.

Next look at the total marks you were given. Say it's marked out of 400 (to keep it simple) and using the example above you got 279 which would be a C1, and the extra three marks would bring you to 272 which is a B3, then you would have grounds to appeal it.

However if you are on 275 (also a C1) the extra marks would bring you to 278 which is still a C1 and you would be wasting your time sending it back.


What students regularly fail to consider too is that occasionally they may have been awarded marks for an answer that is not correct,so again taking the example above, if you deserve the 3 marks, but you found in Q4 that when you were asked to name the first four numbers each for 3 marks and you named 1, 2 3, and 5 and were given 12 marks for the question, on the appeal these 3 marks would be deducted for an incorrect answer and you are back where you started.

So check all answers that have been awarded marks when you are doing so.

NOTE: The SEC do not give grades by percentage only by marks, there is no rounding.

So on a paper marked out of 400, 360 is an A1 (90%). 359 is an A2 (89.75%), they do not go by percentages as some students mistakenly think and wonder why they got 89.75% and it wasn't rounded to 90%. It doesn't work like that.

student18

Thank you for your advice. That is an awful lot of calculations without a pen for 8 subjects. Do many people actually get upgraded? Knowing me I would be worried sick about being downgraded until the results come out in October. I know crazy or what;)

teach432

student18 wrote: »

Thank you for your advice. That is an awful lot of calculations without a pen for 8 subjects. Do many people actually get upgraded? Knowing me I would be worried sick about being downgraded until the results come out in October. I know crazy or what;)

Last year there were around 9,000 appeals of which 1,500 were upgraded. They are usually due to totting errors rather than actual mistakes with the correcting.

rainbowtrout

student18 wrote: »

Thank you for your advice. That is an awful lot of calculations without a pen for 8 subjects. Do many people actually get upgraded? Knowing me I would be worried sick about being downgraded until the results come out in October. I know crazy or what;)

No, don't panic. Most of your work will be marked fine and you won't have changes so no need to do any calculations. you are allowed to bring a calculator with you. A proper calculator, not a phone as you're not allowed have a phone, presumably so you can't take photos of your paper.


If there was a chance of a downgrade, you probably wouldn't be sending the paper back.

There were 1500 upgrades last year.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/1009/479226-leaving-cert-education/

student18

Thanks again for the advice. I might wait until Monday to hand in the form, even though I'm sure the course won't drop 10 points

HauntedGhost

If there is a obvious mistake on the paper such as a toting up error, do you have to wait till mid October or can they fast track it so you can be upgraded before it effects your college course?

randylonghorn

HauntedGhost wrote: »

If there is a obvious mistake on the paper such as a toting up error, do you have to wait till mid October or can they fast track it so you can be upgraded before it effects your college course?

Issues which are purely administrative - e.g. error in transcription of marks from the answerbook to the marking sheet and then on to the SEC database - and which can be dealt with by the SEC admin staff in Athlone can be fast-tracked, and you'll hear back pretty quickly.

Anything which requires the attention of an examiner will have to go through the formal appeals / recheck process.

A "totting-up error" might go either way depending on the nature of the error I suspect ... I'm not a 100% certain on how they deal with this, so don't hold me to it, but I suspect if it's very clearcut like an error in addition on the front cover, it might be possible to fast-track it, whereas if it's (say) a section of a question not included in the mark for that question then you're definitely into formal re-check territory.

The Organising Superintendent for the viewing sessions will be able to advise anyway; and indeed your school / teachers will probably be pretty up to speed with what has to go one route or the other ... more so than I would be!

lapetitefraise

Are we allowed to bring in the actual exam papers for viewing the scripts, or will we just have to work with the marking schemes on their own?