Myth of rock-solid exam grades

A form of borderline marking has been in operation at degree level for at least 20 years, and it's a perfectly reasonable process (Borderline marking 'inflating A-level grades', August 11). The marking of examination papers isn't the exact science that some people appear to think it is. Even in mathematics, probably one of the easiest subjects in which to set a tight marking scheme, two equally competent markers will rarely award exactly the same marks for a given paper.

In the geology department in which I used to work, we used to assume an error of about 5% either way for each paper and 3% for the average mark, on which the degree was awarded. Although we didn't re-mark any papers, we did look at the profile of marks of any student who had achieved an overall mark of no more than three below any class boundary. A student with an average of, say, 58%, pulled down by one poor result, would probably get a 2:1 rather than a 2:2. A student with the same average but only one individual mark above 59% would be awarded a 2:2. None of this was automatic; the opinions of staff were always the deciding factor.

The level of achievement in public examinations is so critical that it is important to try to ensure that no one near the borderline is failed when a pass might have been awarded. There's nothing new in this principle. We often allow a retrial for the guilty, but we don't usually retry those found innocent.
Ken Vines
Horrabridge, Devon

Yet another exam grading story which ignores the fundamental problem with grading exams - it is scientifically invalid to split a continuous scale (% marks) into bands. If you have an A grade for those who exceed 80%, someone with 79.9% will get a B and someone with 80.1% will get an A. Yet statistically these two candidates will be indistinguishable. And if there is a B band for those exceeding 70%, someone with 70.1% will get a B and be classed alongside the person who got 79.9%. Why do we allow a system to be used which gives people of the same ability different grades and people who have different abilities the same grade?
Dr Richard Firn

The report that rechecking exam papers that fall just below grade boundaries contributes to "grade inflation" fails to explain how this effect is cumulative rather than simply repeated annually. As examinations are marked on the same basis each year, the effect should be constant and indeed readily quantifiable.

The true reason examination results are improving year by year is that teaching staff are becoming better at coaching their students at passing examinations, because this is the principal measure of school success despite the Every Child Matters agenda, which was supposed to bring in other considerations.
Laurence N Mann
Chair, Orleans Park school, Twickenham

It is a myth that before GCSEs boys "consistently outperformed" girls (Letters, August 12). Between 1968 and 1986 the difference between the sexes in O-level attainment was zero or slightly in girls' favour. It is of no benefit to males to carry on pretending that while females plod along successfully with coursework, we just can't compete with male genius when it comes to hardcore challenges such as "proper" exams. We can and do.
Victoria Dutchman-Smith

The introduction of robots into the classroom (Report, August 9) will be disastrous, especially in early years. Before the mind has prepared the left hemisphere for cognitive development (age seven onwards), children learn through deep, holistic imitation. When a teacher writes on a blackboard, for example, they experience vestigial muscular movements in arms and hands, which will encourage them to write. When a child sees a robot, she sees a machine devoid of feeling and emotion, and responds accordingly, dampening her own systems of feeling and emotion; this will eventually shallow her intellect. When, instead, she is engaged in singing and rhyming, complex internal processes are awakened to develop tonal and phonemic discrimination, and at the same time enrich her social and relational behaviour.
Grethe Hooper Hansen
Batheaston, Somerset