Edexcel Examiner Tip #5: should you get your exam paper remarked?
There are various reasons why people choose to have their papers remarked. Clearly, it will always be linked to not being happy with the grade they received. Deciding to have a paper remarked is a personal decision, but you should make the decision with some advice from the maths department at your school. In some cases, it is worth having a remark of your paper. For example, if you do not attain a grade 4 in GCSE maths, you will have to retake it. If you were very close to a grade 4, no more than three or four marks away, it is worth having your papers looked at again. Finding those three or four marks on the paper could save you retaking the exam. For other people they may not attain the grade they needed for a sixth form place. Perhaps they needed a 7 in maths to be able to take up a place on a particular course in sixth form or college. Again, if you are very close to the grade boundary it may be worth having your papers remarked. For other people, they are genuinely surprised by the grade they achieved. It may be lower than the grades they had been achieving all year. It is worth looking again at how close the marks are to the next grade up.
You need to exercise caution. Having a paper remarked could lead to a higher grade, but there is no guarantee that it will not lead to a lower grade. And the final grade awarded is the one you must stick with. So, how do you make such a tough decision? Firstly, you can recall your papers. With Edexcel this is called ATS (access to a script). This is a free service, and it allows you to look through the paper and match it up to the mark scheme. You can look for any discrepancies in the marking. Your maths teacher is usually very willing to do this for you. As a teacher and Head of Maths, I have often done this for students, and then I give them my best advice. However, I do not make the final decision on whether to have the papers remarked. If, following this, you choose to have it remarked, there will be a fee per paper. The exam officer at your school will handle the process for you, but you would be required to pay a fee to the exam board. As the fee is per paper, it can become expensive.
In my time as a teacher, I have rarely seen grades go up after papers being remarked. This is because maths marking tends to have a high level of accuracy. I have, though, on occasion had papers back which had clear discrepancies in marking, and when we sent them for remarking, the mark went up. If you are quite far from the next grade boundary an increase in marks will not necessarily lead to a higher grade.
So, to summarise, if you are considering having a paper remarked, take a close look at how near you are to the next grade boundary. Keep in mind that grades can go down in the remark process, and that you must pay for this service. However, you will not pay to simply recall your paper. As a teacher, I always hope that we will not be recalling papers, as this usually means we have a cohort who are generally happy with their result.
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