What if BOS cant read ur response? (1 Viewer)

brent012

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Nope, this topic has come up a bit and according to cem who is a hsc marker, if i remember correct, they will try fairly hard to determine what you have written and if that is no use they will mark what they can read. The only time i've heard of a student or the school being contacted by BOS in regards to their exams was what happened to a friend of mine when part of his paper was misplaced (was a stuff up where the supervisor marked it all as collected and handed him a page of complete answers along with the exam paper for him to take home which he didn't realise until the call)
 

lonelynight99

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Nope, this topic has come up a bit and according to cem who is a hsc marker, if i remember correct, they will try fairly hard to determine what you have written and if that is no use they will mark what they can read. The only time i've heard of a student or the school being contacted by BOS in regards to their exams was what happened to a friend of mine when part of his paper was misplaced (was a stuff up where the supervisor marked it all as collected and handed him a page of complete answers along with the exam paper for him to take home which he didn't realise until the call)
Okay. It explains alot. Thanks
 

enoilgam

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Nope, this topic has come up a bit and according to cem who is a hsc marker, if i remember correct, they will try fairly hard to determine what you have written and if that is no use they will mark what they can read.
This pretty much - I am pretty sure they don't contact your school if they cant read your work.
 

deswa1

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I can guarantee from our science head who used to be a HSC senior marker and she stresses "Whatever the markers can't read IS NOT marked". They don't call you up to read it to them, they don't spend heaps and heaps of time on it- they won't mark it. Obviously they might get someone else to try or whatever but they won't spend hours trying to decipher one script.
 

brent012

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I can guarantee from our science head who used to be a HSC senior marker and she stresses "Whatever the markers can't read IS NOT marked". They don't call you up to read it to them, they don't spend heaps and heaps of time on it- they won't mark it. Obviously they might get someone else to try or whatever but they won't spend hours trying to decipher one script.
I was told this at school too, but i recall Cem saying they go to a bit of effort to try and read work if it looks like a good effort. I guess i'll try and find the post.
 

enoilgam

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I was told this at school too, but i recall Cem saying they go to a bit of effort to try and read work if it looks like a good effort. I guess i'll try and find the post.
I think they go to the senior marker if it is unreadable.
 

deswa1

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I was told this at school too, but i recall Cem saying they go to a bit of effort to try and read work if it looks like a good effort. I guess i'll try and find the post.
Yeah they'll go to a bit of effort but they won't spend hours on it. It depends on the marker- some might be bothered and spend 5 or 10 mins, others might be pissed and move on. Remember that markers are human -> if they are marking at 8p.m and they can't read it and they're already annoyed... well...
 

brent012

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I think they go to the senior marker if it is unreadable.
Yeah you are right! There are a few posts she has made but they all say roughly the same thing. They don't put quite as much effort in as i recalled lol BUT atleast theres a few people reading your work. Something to keep in mind though is the sheer number of papers they mark every year, what's illegible to the average person might just be a massive annoyance for them to read.

As an HSC marker can I just say that we will try to read it - but if we can't read it we can't mark it.

It doesn't get handed to some specialist, it doesn't get handed to a typist, it doesn't get handed to the Senior Marker.

What happens is that the marker assigned the paper is allowed to consult with another marker to see if they can work out a few more words - and that is usually the SM - for the simple reason that if one marker in the group can't read it the chances are that the second marker won't be able to read it and so the SM will be consulted again and finally if they two marks are far enough apart it will be taken back to the SM anyway - who would then be reading it for the third time.

Handwriting is a part of the communication skill set and you are being assessed on your ability to communicate - so if it can't be read it can't be marked.

Another furphy I hear every so often is that students are called in to read their work to the markers - again no - that would be totally unfair on the students who do the HSC overseas or even just the rural areas of the state.

If your handwriting is bad then you need to spend time working on that e.g. practice by writing out your notes so that you are studying and practicing your handwriting at the same time - and as you would need to concentrate on what you are writing it might even improve your studying.
 

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The mark is given based on what can be read. You're writing has to be atrocious for it to be illegible to these markers though.
 

cem

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To add to the most that was linked - I have been marking for over 20 years and have come across only 3 scripts in that time that I had to take to another marker for help. Sadly two of them were this year as the standard of handwriting I had to deal with this year was definitely worse than in the past (and we put that down to this year being the first group who had the laptops since Year 9). Other markers I spoke to said the same thing - standard of handwriting has deteriorated but...the number of scripts that needed help were still very very low. By help I mean actually having two markers sitting with a script and trying to decipher it not where you lean across to your next door neighbour and ask them to help with a word here and there.

We are professionals and teachers who would want other markers to take a lot of care with our students responses so we take a lot of care with the scripts we are given.
 

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To add to the most that was linked - I have been marking for over 20 years and have come across only 3 scripts in that time that I had to take to another marker for help. Sadly two of them were this year as the standard of handwriting I had to deal with this year was definitely worse than in the past (and we put that down to this year being the first group who had the laptops since Year 9). Other markers I spoke to said the same thing - standard of handwriting has deteriorated but...the number of scripts that needed help were still very very low. By help I mean actually having two markers sitting with a script and trying to decipher it not where you lean across to your next door neighbour and ask them to help with a word here and there.

We are professionals and teachers who would want other markers to take a lot of care with our students responses so we take a lot of care with the scripts we are given.
My English teacher said the same thing.
 

ahdil33

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one of my teachers who's been a HSC marker for ages told me back in the day where would be a certain marker who could just read everything, the decipherer, so if they got anything that was unreadable they would show to him lol. but apparently doesn't happen anymore
 

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