The marking of essays

How exam essays should be marked

[What follows is my explanation of Levels mark schemes and how they should be applied when essays are marked. This is how I did it – I cannot guarantee today’s markers do it my way.]

In the UK, extended prose and essays are assessed and marked by means of Levels mark schemes. What is the difference between assessment and marking?

Assessment involves making a judgement against a set of, and indicating the evidence for, assessment objectives (AO). For most A Level Geography students, there are two key assessment objectives: AO1 and AO2 (see below). A minority of students are assessed also by a third AO – AO3 – involving the ’skill’ of assembling and communicating an argument in an essay. Curiously, AO3 is not used by the two main UK examination boards assessing A level Geography essays.

AO1: demonstrate knowledge and understanding of places, environments, concepts, processes, interactions, and change, at a variety of scales.

AO2: apply knowledge and understanding in different contexts to interpret, analyse, and evaluate geographical information and issues.

Marking is seemingly a more straightforward task – allocating a mark out of the total marks available. Although it may appear to be a straightforward task, unfortunately it is not.

Figure 1 below shows two simplified generic mark schemes that are used by two of the larger UK examination boards for the assessment of an essay out of 20 marks. The first one has an equal weighting of AO1 and AO2, whereas the second has a greater weighting for AO2.

For each there are 4 Levels, each carrying a range of marks: 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20. It is not expected anyone will score zero marks.

How to mark

Examiners will read an essay from start to finish, indicating as they go along where the AOs have been met. My advice to examiners over several years was to encourage them to read an essay ONCE, and once only. It serves no purpose to read an essay more than once – you should have formulated a view in that single reading. This is not only fair to all students (why should some get a double (or treble!) reading?), but also fair to the examiner as, to put it simply, time equals money.

I have posted several examples of the practice of allocating AOs to essay answers over the last two years including the most recent here. I do not intend to repeat this here. This essay was assessed using the first of the mark schemes provided.

After reading the essay, the examiner can now consider the mark scheme. The key elements now are the subjective judgements arising from the adjectives in the mark schemes:

Level 1 – limited/unsupported

Level 2 – partial/some

Level 3 – clear/relevant/logical

Level 4 – detailed/relevant/accurate/rational.

Figure 1. Generic essay mark schemes

Example 1

Example 2

Note that in the first of the mark schemes, each Level has 4 criteria – two for AO1 and two for AO2. It is interesting to note that AO2 appears above AO1. This is due to the view that meeting AO2 is a more challenging task than meeting AO1. Applying and evaluating are higher level skills than simply knowing and understanding. This is the reason for the second mark scheme having a greater proportion of AO2 – a three to one weighting.

Some students may satisfy all elements of a Level, to the same standard. The majority do not, so the examiner should apply a ‘best-fit’ model of the 4 criteria within each Level. Should there be a 2-2 draw (say, 2 @ Level 3 criteria met and 2 @ Level 2 criteria met), then the examiner should make a judgement call, based on the relative worth of AO2 v. AO1, with AO2 being ‘better’ than AO1.

Once a Level has been decided, we can now decide the mark. As stated earlier, in the mark schemes above each Level has a range of 5 marks. In my view, deciding a mark should done as follows.

An overall Level is decided. Next, move straightaway to the middle mark in each Level: 3, 8, 13, 18. That is the mark you are likely to award EXCEPT:

(a)    If there are some inaccuracies or mistakes that do not override the Level decision, then you should go below the mid-mark, say, for example in Level 3 from 13 to 12 or 11.

(b)   If there a particular point well-made, or an interesting or modern example (such as one NOT in a textbook – maybe on a Substack??), or a bit of individuality/flair, then you should go above the mid mark, say, for example in Level 3 from 13 to 14 or 15.

It follows therefore that for Level 4, the most common mark should be 18, with fewer at 19, and maybe even some at 20?

But, then again, Geography exams are marked by Geography teachers, and we all know what they are like!