No sympathy marks: Exams Dept adopts new marking method
View(s):A new method of calculating of G.C.E. (O/L) examination marks will be introduced from this year, a top official said. Under the new system, the marks for the first paper and the second paper will be sent separately to the Examinations Department where the two scores would be added and grades would be given.
“The objective of this method is to reduce mistakes in calculating the marks and also to prevent examiners from adding marks on sympathetic grounds.
It is alleged some examiners add a few marks, if a student falls short of a few marks for a grade,” Examinations Commissioner General Sanath Pujitha said.
“For instance, if a student had scored a total of 72 marks for the first and second papers, an examiner may add three marks here and there to round up to 75 to enable the student to get an A grade for the subject,” he said.
He said that under the new method, the examiner marking paper would have no idea as to how much the student had scored for the first or second paper, and, therefore, would not be moved to add marks on sympathetic grounds. Mr Pujitha said the new method was adopted in the interest of the students. If an accurate assessment of the student’s understanding of the subjects was not made at the GCE O/L examination, the student might select the wrong stream or subjects for the Advanced Level and could fail in all three subjects, he said.
He said some 22,000 students failed all three subjects at the A/Ls at the last exams and this was probably because they had passed the GCE O/L exam on ‘sympathetic grounds’ and based on the results selected the wrong subjects for the Advanced Level.