In 2020, the cut-off scores on offers day for the consortium schools all dropped substantially both compared to the previous year (between 6 and 17 points) and compared to every year since the last change in VR provider.

My belief is, having seen the anonymised scores, that the drop was due to the change in VR provider and you can expect them to remain lower next year.

The distribution of the maths score has remained consistent across the last three years. The average VR score this year dropped 8 points and 13 points compared to the previous two years and now has a distribution almost identical to the maths scores.

While the cut-off scores themselves vary from year to year and depend on many factors, including fluctuations in birth rates, new school building/expansion, popularity of particular schools and the numbers choosing the private sector, I would expect them to be in the same ball park as this year.

The first year that the provider changed from VR to CEM in 2015 was low and SW Herts actually recommended that parents add 25 marks to their score.

The next year it recovered to close to normal and I think the same thing will happen this year.

Last year was the first year of GL Multiple Choice VR after four years of CEM and scores dropped. But I think scores will recover this year because it is the second year and parents and study centres and tutors now know about the new format. DG

I know of five people who were surprised at their low score (under 210) yet were in the top 130 for DAO.
Spanner, where can we see the anonymised scores. I’m interested to know the highest score.

You can submit a freedom of information request to the consortium.

The highest total score was 268 compared with 272 and 269 in the previous two years so not too different. However, the average score was 180 compared to 188 and 194. The difference was totally down to the VR scores. The average maths scores were 90, 90, 91 and the average VR scores were 90, 98, 103.

Really interesting data. Thank you for posting. Do you think that this is because VR is more responsive to the level of preparation? DG

It just looks like the standardisation is done in different ways by the different exam boards.
The GL maths results have had an almost identical distribution for the last three years and this year the VR results also looked the same. The mean, median, lower and upper quartiles all being exactly the same to within a point for all 4 tests. Whereas the CEM results for the two previous years were much more variable.

What is the maximum score for each paper please?

Is it 141 for Maths and 141 for VR?

Thanks

The max score for both VR and maths this year was 135. The maths was 139 and 135 for the two previous years.

Thank you Spanner.

I meant to ask, what is the total score for each subject. Is that what you mentioned?

Thank you.