Mark Discrepencies

I’ve finished checking the first batch of papers allocated to me which consisted of papers from four courses. I’m starting to get the hang of doing it and yes, I do think that the most efficient method is to check all the scores on the main sheet first, before verifying each paper against it’s score.

The reason is simply one of context switching. With this method, context switching is kept to a minimum. Checking the scores on the main sheet merely involves punching a calculator at lightning speed and looking at the values. Then, the next task of verifying each paper against it’s mark sheet is just a question of looking it up in the table, in sorted order. Then, the last task is to actually verify that each page has been marked and the marks totalled up correctly. I do this while looking up the scores to reduce the amount of manual paper flipping work that I need to do. Optimisation.

Three of the courses went without problems and I could quickly sign off on the papers. One of the courses has quite a large number of errors though. Some of the questions were totalled incorrectly and some pages were not marked. I’ve noted down all the details of the errors on a sheet of paper that I will need to attach to the official marker’s form later. It’s a little unfortunate for the students as in each case, they had been given too many marks and might need to have some of their marks deducted.

So, I’ll need to meet up with the principal assessors to make the corrections. However, that person is away for the whole of next week. So, I can only make the corrections the following week, which is pushing the deadline kind of close.

I have noticed something about marking though. You can tell if a lecturer is dedicated or not, simply by how they mark the papers. Some lecturers are very careful in their marking, with lots of details, while others are just cincai doing it. It really comes through in the marking.

So, next week, I’ll go return this batch of papers and possibly pick up another batch of papers to check. I do the mark checking while watching TV. It also helps me to keep my mind off things.