Hi, I was wondering if anyone can please help answer: What is the usual pass mark for an SA3 exam, and how is the mark adjusted based on the ease of the paper/ performance? Is it aimed at a specific pass-rate range? Thank you
I've no idea what the pass mark is. Regarding the pass rate though, the Profession always says that it doesn't have pass quotas. Having spoken to a few people involved with GCSE and A-Level exams, I'm told that what this normally means is that there is no quota in the sense of a set number of people who should pass. In practice though, when they try to assess the difficulty of individual papers in order to adjust the pass mark for that paper, one of the strongest considerations is whether the resulting pass rate would be commensurate with previous sittings. If true, this would leave the Profession's claim not to have quotas looking a bit disingenuous, IMHO.
It varies from sitting to sitting depending on the level of difficulty of the exam, but 40% wouldn't be an unreasonable estimate. Bear in mind that there are plans to change this going forward, though, in preparation for the possibility of publishing pass marks in the future.
