(06-10-2009, 10:37 AM)nthomso3 Wrote: Out of curiousity...what would be the procedure if it was the case that an error has been made? Will there be any communication as such prior to the results being distributed?
I doubt if there is anything laid down but I would be staggered if there was any communication. For one thing until the results are imminently to be published a candidate number is not associated with a candidate name.
The examiners have the problem how to mark those who attempted the question but then seemed to get stuck without explaining why. I believe that it would be easy enough to tell who demonstrated competency on that style of question from what they produced. I guess the bigger difficulty would be in assessing:
a) how much time a candidate may have wasted on that question and therefore may excuse mediocre performance on another question
b) whether a candidate was actually pretty cute and avoided the question completely and perhaps chose another one instead which may not have been so far up their street. However there were quite a few othrs to choose from.
I think if I were marking my initial approach would be fairly hard line:
1. The paper was the same for all candidates
2. There are no guarantees of such a TC calculation question so it should not be relied upon and could have been avoided,
3. If the candidate really knew what they were doing and were confident then they would have detected and reported error / stated suitable assumption.
4. Part of exam technique is not to spend excessive time on any one question
Having marked the paper I may then have been feeling a little guilty and therefore would be looking for signs that the candidate really had been put off / had wasted excessive time. I would therefore be minded to give more "benefit of the doubt" if the particular candidate were close to a grade boundary. Realistically I could probably not tell if someone had avoided a favourite question, but there would be hints for those who had worked unproductively on that question.
To be frank I suspect the people that were particularly put off would be those who were always going to be marginal, not those who really understood what they were at. Anyone in exam conditions that finds the question is not going their way will no doubt be distracted by that; however in life all is not plain sailing and it is how you cope with those set backs is what counts.
Remember that has always been made clear that the marks are as much for how you tackle and explain the question and calculations- not just getting the numbers to come out.
PJW
