External assessment
- Tips to give to students on how to maximise their marks on each of the two externally assessed examination papers
- Specific details of areas of difficulty and how to teach your students to overcome them
- Fun ways of understanding objectives and using command terms
- Practice Section A Paper 1 exams
- Examples of questions with worked answers for experimental work and data response on Section B on Paper 1
- Full explanation of grade descriptors and grade boundaries
- Full details on the whole examination process from how the exams are written to how they are marked and graded
- Advice on how to arrive at predicted grades
- Why your feedback on the exams is important
- Information and advice on Enquiry upon Results (EUR) and retakes
Introduction
We have come a long way since Henry Armstrong made the following statement:
“When Prof. Ayrton and I were appointed the first professors of the City and Guilds of London Institute we found ourselves in complete agreement that we would have nothing to do with teaching for examinations.
I am proud to say that the programmes of the Guild’s Colleges have never been disfigured by references to examinations as objects to be kept in view by students.”
Henry E.Armstrong
(Science Progress,1886)
Rightly or wrongly the examinations now have a central role in most (all?) teachers' and students' lives. The syllabus is written so that it is clear what can be examined and the exams are written using command terms which are commensurate with the level of objective being tested. The pressure is heavily on students to achieve certain high grades in order to continue into higher education.
This part of the Website looks at every aspect of external examinations.
Essential Facts
This section looks at the essential facts about the assessment process. This page covers the format of the papers and the component weightings. Linked pages cover the assessment objectives and command...
Paper 1
This section looks at all aspects of Paper 1 which consists of Section A (multiple choice) and Section B (short answer data-based questions on experimental work). Linked pages cover advice to students,...
Paper 2
This section looks at all aspects of Paper 2 which consists of several long questions broken down into smaller individual sub-questions which often make connections between different strands of the...
The examination process
This section covers the whole of the examination process. The examining team, including the managers from the IB, the setting of the papers, their marking and grading. It also covers the important role...
FAQs about external assessment
Ten frequently asked questions with answers.