I have just got back an assignment X in which the marker gave me the wrong score (divided by 100 instead of 80 to give a lower percentage). In my mocks for last sitting the marker missed out a 15 mark question from one of my papers. These don't particulary bother me as I think the marker has done well to get through my handwriting, and I can add up my own marks if I want to. What does concern me is the possibility that such mishaps happen when the institute mark us for real. Does anyone have a view/opinion as to whether the institutes double marking can truly guard against this sort of thing. What level of faith can we have that we are being given the 'right' mark. Would be interested to hear the opinions/anecdotes of others.
Each paper is marked several times. Each marker marks certain questions & puts scores into spreadsheet/grid. Very unlikely that a question would be missed. Even more unlikely that the score would be added up incorrectly. More likely that a paper would get lost in the post. For the mathematical papers, the marking does seem to be rigorous, but then I'm not a marker...
From what I know, examiners mark all the paper - not specific qns. Everyone is double marked (blindly so marker 2 doesn't know what marker 1 gave). When there are big discrepancies they are 3rd marked so I agree don't worry about additions. I notice your comment re writing. Best advice is be as legible as possible even if that means putting keywords in BLOCK. I have the same problem and it does seem to help on non-numeric work.
