Exam marking problems

Look at CP3. IFoA provide no other way to demonstrate communication competence to get Fellowship or Associateship. £320 entry fee and the two markers get £15 each to mark it. This leaves a huge £290 from each candidate for IFoA to sort out the rest. The opinions of these markers, no matter how far apart from each other, are then combined by completely unspecified processes an adjustments to arrive at a 'final mark'. If this is short of a pass mark this means a fail. The pass mark is also not particularised or transparent in how it is arrived at. This can cause a delay to qualification for 6 months at a time. Then a complaints handling process that only ever seems to fob off complaints and cement fail grades, no matter how far apart the two markers are, as we never hear of a fail turning into a pass. This system has no credibility.

 

1.24am after another post on the judgment day thread at 12.36....get some sleep, this isn't healthy

 

Please could someone give me advice? I have recently got results for my CP3 exam for which i failed. My first marker gave 48 and my second marker 62 with a script review giving 56.5 (pass mark 57) so i failed by half a mark. I am unhappy with the large variance between the first two markers and don't see how this can possibly be correct. I want to appeal but need to know my chances since the appeal doc states:

 

Hi Foridha

I have a very similar story, its just that I failed by 1 mark with the first marker giving 64. Please let me know what approach you followed?

Thanks
Hemant

 

Invalid to appeal on marking variances? lol this 'professional' body keeps on disgracing itself.

 

"Challenging the academic judgement because candidate believes they deserve a different outcome".

lol

 

Quoting from the Student Consultative Forum minutes Nov 2019:

"Marking Discrepancies
The forum noted that when students have made Subject Access Requests (SARs), that they will receive full marks from one
marker, and no marks from another marker. It was asked how this can occur on numerical questions. LG noted that often markers
will come to different conclusions when marking, and that this is not necessarily an error in marking."

LG refers to IFoA Head of Assessment.

Why do actuaries tolerate this?

Look at SCF notes Nov 2019, on SA4 April 2019:

"3.4 SA4 Pass Rates It was noted that the SA4 pass rate for the April 2019 exam session was very low compared to previous sessions. LG noted that exam papers are tested by ‘Guinea Pigs’ who will test-sit the exam paper and highlight any issues. The GP process did not indicate that the paper was very difficult, but the exam sitting demonstrated that students had found the paper challenging. LG noted that the Assessment Team were working closely with the SA4 team to understand the issues with the paper."

and later in the document:

"Marking Schemes It was noted that previous marking schemes for SA4 had 180-200 marks, and that the April 2019 scheme only had 120 marks. LG noted that mark schemes are agreed in the marking meeting for each exam paper. Sometimes marks will be added to the scheme if the test batch marking indicates that there is information that warrants extra marks."