This is an interesting conversation, and I would like to thank ActuaryStudent9123116 for raising this issue and StudentActuary_02 and almost_there for their helpful points.
I sat SA4 in April 2016 and was given a mark of 55 (pass mark was 59).
I was surprised, as I thought I had done enough to pass, and decided to appeal on the basis of a procedural irregularity (this was before you needed evidence to do so - although who knows how you are supposed to get evidence these days in the 15 days needed to submit an appeal, when an SAR takes 40 days to come through).
Obviously, my appeal failed and my mark of 55 was maintained.
A few months later I came across this topic and decided to submit an SAR for my SA4 results and all internal correspondence relating to my exam sitting and appeal, primarily to find out which question I did so badly on that I failed.
This turned up some interesting results: Marker 1 had awarded me 62 marks (i.e. a pass) and Marker 2 had awarded me 60 marks (i.e. also a pass).
However, there was a third column titled ‘adopted mark’, which summed to 55.2 (i.e. a fail), and which is the mark I was given for my paper.
I went back to the Institute and asked them to double-check the information they provided, as I believed they had either provided me with the wrong person’s marks, or that I had uncovered some kind of mistake in the averaging of my marks.
The Institute have now responded and let me know that my marks were ‘normalised’ in order to ensure discrepancies between markers do not unfairly disadvantage students.
The have also confirmed that my ‘normalised mark’ was reviewed by senior examiners and deemed appropriate, although no evidence of this was provided as part of my initial SAR.
I’m not sure where to go from this to be honest (probably nowhere if I pass it on Thursday!) but thought this tale might be of interest to others.
In the interests of balance, it is worth mentioning that I also failed CA3 and included this in my SAR. One marker passed me (just) and the other gave me a fail. The two marks were averaged (to a fail), and then my script was reviewed by a third actuary who confirmed that taken as a whole, a fail was appropriate.