Basic information about the marking process

When the examination is finished the scripts are sealed and sent off for scanning in the case of Papers 2 and 3 and to be optically read in the case of the Paper 1 multiple choice answer sheet. The digitalized form of the students' answers to Paper 2 and Paper 3 are then sent electronically to assistant examiners for marking.

Any unsent examination papers such as Paper 1 and unused Papers 2 and 3 must be locked away in the school for the next 24 hours after the examination. This means that as a teacher you will not be able to see the paper until after then. It is important that you do eventually see the papers and comment on them as you should then complete a Teacher Feedback form. This will be covered in the next section on Commenting on the exams.

The assistant examiners form part of a team. A team consists of about ten assistant examiners and is led by a Team Leader. There are several Chemistry teams and they form part of the overall marking system led by the Principal Examiner for the particular paper.

The answers and the markscheme have been formulated beforehand at the paper setting meeting but before anyone can start marking for real there is a standardization meeting. This is carried out by the Principal Examiner and some of the Team Leaders. They mark some  scripts in pencil according to the markscheme and make a note of any areas where students are giving alternative acceptable answers or interpreting the question in a different (but correct) way which can lead to different acceptable answers to those on the markscheme. They also ask the members of their team if they have any relevant comments. This meeting used to take place at IBCA in Cardiff about five to six days after the examination. For the past few years it has taken place online using VoIP (such as Skype). 

During the standardization meeting the markscheme is completely reviewed in the light of the answers given by students. Attention is also given to ensure that those parts of the paper that are common to both SL and HL have the same revisions made to the markschemes  Team Leaders then mark a few scripts and compare their marks to ensure uniformity of interpretation with the Principal Examiner. For the May session there is also some liaising between the two times zones to ensure a similar standard of marking. The revised markscheme is then published and the paper and revised markscheme made available to all assistant examiners who are then able to proceed with marking their allocation about one week after the examination has taken place. At the same time the Principal examiner marks what are known as 'seeded scripts'. For every twelve digitalised scripts that an assistant examiner marks two of them will be the seeded scripts. This is a way of checking assistant examiners are marking to the same standard as the Principal Examiner. If their marks are not in reasonable agreement with the seeded script marks then their marking is terminated.

Examiners must adhere to the published markscheme. If they come across something that they are unsure how to mark they can e-mail the problem to their Team Leader. In consultation with the Principal Examiner the problem and the Principal Examiner’s response to it are then circulated to all the examiners so that as far as possible everyone is operating to the same standard. That standard is, of course, the standard set by the Principal Examiner. Examiners mark digitally in red ink and are told to put a tick whenever the student has written enough to justify the mark and place the actual mark(s) achieved alongside the possible mark(s) for each sub-question. The marks are then totalled up electronically for each question. When there is some doubt about whether to award a mark or not examiners are encouraged to write a relevant note alongside the relevant scanned box. The precise marking instructions given to examiners can be found at the bottom of this page. The total marks for all the questions marked are entered electronically onto a secure site called IBIS. It does depend on the length of the paper but most examiners will mark in the region of 100 – 150 scripts from a wide range of different schools worldwide.  

The Principal Examiner marks some of his own scripts and liaises with all the Team Leaders and also any assistant examiners in his own team. All the marks from all examiners must be entered on IBIS within one month of the examination being sat and all the marked scripts are sent digitally to IBCA in Cardiff by that date too. This is to ensure that all the necessary information is available for the Grade Award meeting.