appealing your final grades (1 Viewer)

MichaelJackson2

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Hi all,

Has anyone here had experience with having a final exam re-marked because they did not feel that it accurately reflected their performance? I was so sure (in fact, certain) that I would get a D and an HD for two of my courses but ended up with shithouse final grades for them which I do not think are possible considering the advanced level of legal reasoning shown on my exam responses. Anyone here had similar experiences? I know someone who, after their final exam was re-marked, went from a D right down to a P (passing grade). Surely, marking a law exam cannot be that subjective, can it?

Never have I doubted the fairness of exam marking until now (even where I had received crappy grades).
 
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\/anessa

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If you're that confident, I'd say appeal away! :)

Haven't experienced it myself but a friend of mine had initially failed the unit. He asked to look at his paper; it turned out that they had neglected to mark an entire question. :rolleyes: So he had it remarked and ended up with a D, I think.

Another friend also appealed against her Pass; it then got boosted to a HD.

Quite farcical IMO.
 

hfis

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Appeal it anyway. But remember that most unis will moderate the final mark - so even if your raw mark was something like 87, if the lecturer felt like you weren't a HD student, it'd probably end up below 85 (or whatever cut off your university has). What other unis have marks out? I was under the impression that UOW was early for some reason.
 

MichaelJackson2

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\/anessa said:
a friend of mine had initially failed the unit. He asked to look at his paper; it turned out that they had neglected to mark an entire question. :rolleyes: So he had it remarked and ended up with a D, I think.

Another friend also appealed against her Pass; it then got boosted to a HD.

Quite farcical IMO.
OMG! As the old judge from Boston Legal would say, OUTRAGEOUS!

hfis said:
But remember that most unis will moderate the final mark - so even if your raw mark was something like 87, if the lecturer felt like you weren't a HD student, it'd probably end up below 85 (or whatever cut off your university has).
True. But still, OUTRAGEOUS.
 
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piitb

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ones thing for certain, fails rarley are errors. when someone gets a fail that mark is checked an rechecked again.
 

MichaelJackson2

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piitb said:
ones thing for certain, fails rarley are errors. when someone gets a fail that mark is checked an rechecked again.
perhaps it's triple-checked by three different markers.

why do you think there are cases of students whose grades get boosted by 2 or (rarely) 3 notches after it gets re-marked? the only reason that springs to mind is that someone who aims for a 7 writes in highly technical language, recalls and applies conflicting judicial opinion on abstract concepts, and distinguishes subtle circumstances in the factual scenario presented in the exam problem to complex facts in multiple cases, all of which, to a marker who does not have expertise in the field (assuming it is being marked by someone other than the course coordinator/lecturer), appears illogical, unstructured and convoluted. can there be any other reason???
 
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Lara1986

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MichaelJackson2 said:
perhaps it's triple-checked by three different markers.

why do you think there are cases of students whose grades get boosted by 2 or (rarely) 3 notches after it gets re-marked? the only reason that springs to mind is that someone who aims for a 7 writes in highly technical language, recalls and applies conflicting judicial opinion on abstract concepts, and distinguishes subtle circumstances in the factual scenario presented in the exam problem to complex facts in multiple cases, all of which, to a marker who does not have expertise in the field (assuming it is being marked by someone other than the course coordinator/lecturer), appears illogical, unstructured and convoluted. can there be any other reason???
The alteration in mark is not always a result of a 're-mark' per se - sometimes it is as simple as a clerical error or a marker failing to mark all pages/booklets.

I know of people who failed a unit because some of their exam paper was misplaced and they were consequently only marked on one of 3 sections.

Other people i know have had their mark adjusted because it was a simple matter of numbers being added wrong or misread.

Perhaps that is the reason for the very drastic changes in mark? Seems a logical reason for such a big variation.
 

Anonymous1

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MichaelJackson2 said:
Hi all,

Has anyone here had experience with having a final exam re-marked because they did not feel that it accurately reflected their performance? I was so sure (in fact, certain) that I would get a D and an HD for two of my courses but ended up with shithouse final grades for them which I do not think are possible considering the advanced level of legal reasoning shown on my exam responses. Anyone here had similar experiences? I know someone who, after their final exam was re-marked, went from a D right down to a P (passing grade). Surely, marking a law exam cannot be that subjective, can it?

Never have I doubted the fairness of exam marking until now (even where I had received crappy grades).
Last semester after getting my marks back, I was curious about the mark I got for one of my subjects. It just didn't feel right.

I emailed the unit director, and eventually had it re-checked, not remarked.

It turns out they didn't add up the marks up in the exam properly - and I had my mark changed from 84 --> 87.

Not a major gain, but it was the difference between a D and an HD.

So, if it doesn't feel right I'd definitely get it checked out.
 

Marmalade.

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^ lol at 'it didn't feel right' and the difference being 3 percent. was this a law unit, and if so, at what uni?
 

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