'Concern' over distribution of LC Results

I also correct. We are in constant contact with our supervising examiners to ensure marking is accurate and slips or complacency don't set in. Also there can be borderline answers that you need advice on.

My examiner doesn't know what bundle any paper comes from until they call that paper to check it so I have no idea how they would ask me to increase the grades for specific bundles....most schools would have more than one centre number too. It would be impossible to be sure where they came from.

The curve is applied to ensure we don't see massive varience in subjects year on year, to keep points somewhat stable so students understand rohghtly what they are aiming for. The assumption is the cohort of 60000 plus students sitting and exam one year should have approximately the same mean and stardard deviation as those in previous year. Papers are strange, for instance the Biology paper at HL last year contained 2 questions that were no longer on the course, hence many students got 50% on the question for just attempting it, therefore section B came out a little high in initial marking...this needs to be adjusted so ensure grade inflation doesn't occur. The Sec do a solid job of keeping things constant and are unbelievably principled, I've had half an hour conversations around 3 marks questions with advising examiners for a student neither of us knows or will ever meet because we want the system to be fair. This is the contact your may be aware of, contact designed to ensure I'm doing my job marking the exams correctly and that I have the support of another person to ask with more experience who then in turn has another person to ask who again has more experience.

The Department of Education also do not employ me or have anything to do with me during correcting. My employer is the SEC in Athlone, for taxes, payroll and HR. From my experience in education in Ireland, if the SEC were running the show I'd be a damn sight more confident in the outcomes being beyond reproach. They would also be on time

Turbohymac wrote: »

Jeepers this is a fair thorny subject..

I wonder why. :rolleyes:

Turbohymac wrote: »

I actually never thought that a moderator would hit the nail on the head..

Seems like you have a pretty low regard for moderators. Regardless, shesty (I assume that that's the moderator in question) might have hit the nail on the head, but they didn't back your point up. They merely pointed out that when points are low, students get in who aren't really able for the course, and they drop out. I don't see how that supports your notion about grade inflation at all. If grade inflation was going on, you'd expect to see the people with the inflated grades dropping out, sure, but the points would be high, not low.

Turbohymac wrote: »

yes I'm well aware of people on here that have previously corrected/marked exam papers for centuries by the sound of things ..

You've been corrected on the correct word to use to describe the process you're talking about, but you're still trying to shoehorn in the incorrect one. Just as well you're not being marked on this.

Turbohymac wrote: »

but it's a fairly sad reflection if all ye can waffle off is that nobody contacts them during corrections..

Who's saying that? Nobody has said that. What people have said is that nobody from the department contacts the examiners during the marking process, which is true. As has been pointed out, the department have nothing to do with setting the exams, running the exams, marking the exams, or anything to do with the exams, really.

Turbohymac wrote: »

I'm very close to someone who also carries out corrections and I'm standing solid on my claims..
yes regular contact during correction .

If you meant that someone from the SEC contacts the examiners, then yes, that is the truth. The advising examiner, and on rare occasions, the chief advising examiner or chief examiner might contact them, but they don't contact them and tell them that they need to bring their marks up because the overall marks are coming in too low.

If your friend is being told to bring their marks up on a regular basis, what that usually means is that your friend is not applying the marking scheme properly, and needs to improve their marking. An advising examiner might tell them that the marks are coming in too low, so as not to hurt your friend's feelings. It's not very good man-management to tell someone that they're crap at their job and need to shape up. Advising examiners are not supposed to tell examiners how the results are looking, overall, because it might cause the examiner to mark harder or easier as a result, and this will lead to more work for the advising examiner and more for the examiner when they need to fix it.
It sounds, to me, like your friend might not be a very good examiner. Hard to tell though, based on second hand information (which is what you're basing your "facts" on, by the way).

Turbohymac wrote: »

However passing nasty derogatory remarks on my level of education only reflects on some self claimed and so called Educated individuals within this community.
After these posts all I can say is fair play to the moderator... for posting a non judgmental post.. unlike the self claimed experts that stupidly think they know all..

Nobody has questioned your education although, ironically, you have now questioned ours ("so called Educated individuals"). It was recommended that you educate yourself on statistics and bell curves, since you seem to want to wade into this discussion, without the relevant expertise with which to do so. I don't know what you do for a living, but if I barrelled into a discussion about it, spouting falsehoods and half-truths, and insisting that they're facts, because "I'm very close to someone who also [does whatever you do, and they told me about it]", you'd probably tell me, quite calmly, that what I was saying was nonsense, and that I should educate myself more on the subject before weighing in in a discussion of something else that's vaguely related to what I think I know about, which is being discussed by people who are actually experts in that field.
It was not a reflection on your level of education. You can't be an expert in everything. What you can do is not try to act like an expert in subjects you don't have any expertise in.

Pistachio19 wrote: »

They registered on the portal and confirmed their preferred level for each subject weeks ago. They were advised at that point that they would still have to opt in at a later stage, that date wasn't given until last week. No idea why as surely they'll all opt in for the predicted grades anyway - nothing to lose.

Presume some will opt out to force the exams to take place. I'm sure there's a few that do want to sit them, and there's a few that will be doing it on principal.