Re-mark Bucks 11+ paper?
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Suki
Re-mark Bucks 11+ paper?
Hello Everyone
I was wandering whether anyone knows whether parents can ask to have the eleven plus paper marked again. As a lot of you probably know through my previous threads my son scored 2x 120, however he is adamant that he found the first test much easier than the second one. It may be that he has had some lucky guesses in the second one, however I would be interested to know the policy of re-marking.
Many thanks in advance.
Suki
I was wandering whether anyone knows whether parents can ask to have the eleven plus paper marked again. As a lot of you probably know through my previous threads my son scored 2x 120, however he is adamant that he found the first test much easier than the second one. It may be that he has had some lucky guesses in the second one, however I would be interested to know the policy of re-marking.
Many thanks in advance.
Suki
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NJG
Hi Suki
Don't know what the policy is about re-marking, but don't forget that the 120 is a Standardised score and not a raw score, so it's quite likely the raw scores in the 2 tests were quite different. This would certainly be the case if other candidates found the 1st test easier as well.
One suggestion to follow up with your appeal is to find out from the LEA what the Statistical margins of error were for the 2 exam and use this in your Appeal letter. Ettiene may be able to help with the words on this.
If you weren't already aware, the Age Standardisation process used by all LEAs and 11+ exam bodies is a statistical process which results in candidates being given an age adjusted standised score which is directly related to an overall test percentile. As it is a statistical process it is subject to errors which the exam marking body must have assessed. Given that you child achieved 120 & 120 and missed by 1 point in each case, there is a very good chance that your sons scores were within the margins of statistical error. I would formally ask what the margin of errors were for the test and include that in you case - possibly quite high up the list.
As an example, I have quoted a section from the recent Gov QCA KS2 Test threshold tables document for the 2005 test:-
Hope this helps
Best of luck on appeal
Don't know what the policy is about re-marking, but don't forget that the 120 is a Standardised score and not a raw score, so it's quite likely the raw scores in the 2 tests were quite different. This would certainly be the case if other candidates found the 1st test easier as well.
One suggestion to follow up with your appeal is to find out from the LEA what the Statistical margins of error were for the 2 exam and use this in your Appeal letter. Ettiene may be able to help with the words on this.
If you weren't already aware, the Age Standardisation process used by all LEAs and 11+ exam bodies is a statistical process which results in candidates being given an age adjusted standised score which is directly related to an overall test percentile. As it is a statistical process it is subject to errors which the exam marking body must have assessed. Given that you child achieved 120 & 120 and missed by 1 point in each case, there is a very good chance that your sons scores were within the margins of statistical error. I would formally ask what the margin of errors were for the test and include that in you case - possibly quite high up the list.
As an example, I have quoted a section from the recent Gov QCA KS2 Test threshold tables document for the 2005 test:-
For the 2005 KS2 SATs the confidence bands were plus or minus 8 marks, 5 marks and 9 marks respectively for the Reading, Matha and mental maths tests.Confidence Bands
Any scores derived from a short test are subject to some margin of error. A margin of error does not mean pupils have been assessed incorrect ly. It is simply a statistical estimate, based on the fact that tests can only sample the particular area of learning which they assess. To indicate how wide this margin of error is likely to be, a '90 per cent confidence band' has been calculated. This means that you can be 90 per cent sure that the puplil's true score lies within the confidence band.
Hope this helps
Best of luck on appeal
It's a very good post by KenR, and I have written elsewhere that a single test is not reliable.
Bucks, to their credit, administer a VR test twice and take the higher score. (They used to do it three times, taking the average of the best two scores!)
I occasionally came across the "margin of error" argument when I was hearing appeals, and it didn't prove anything. I think the panel's reaction to "My son scored 120 and there's a 90% chance his true score lies in the range 115-125" is: "There may be an element of doubt, but that's why we're already considering the alternative academic evidence and the extenuating circumstances to see if there are sufficient grounds to overturn the authority's decision."
Interesting all the same.
Regards
Bucks, to their credit, administer a VR test twice and take the higher score. (They used to do it three times, taking the average of the best two scores!)
I occasionally came across the "margin of error" argument when I was hearing appeals, and it didn't prove anything. I think the panel's reaction to "My son scored 120 and there's a 90% chance his true score lies in the range 115-125" is: "There may be an element of doubt, but that's why we're already considering the alternative academic evidence and the extenuating circumstances to see if there are sufficient grounds to overturn the authority's decision."
Interesting all the same.
Regards
Etienne
re marking paper
My daughter also found the first Bucks paper easier than the second, but she got a better score (3 marks higher) on the second. I think that either she made more mistakes on the first paper (going for the "obvious" answer instead of the correct one) or all the children scored very well on the first paper and marks were suppressed by standardisation.
Resmum
Resmum
