Welcome to this short taster session to introduce our Mocks Marking Training events that we
are offering.
This session will introduce you to the training events which are designed to help you understand
the new A level assessments and be able to mark your students' mock exams with confidence.
This slide gives you an indication of the areas which will be covered by the Mocks Marking
Training.
As you can see, the training will look at the number of assessment issues including
the format of mark schemes and the use of command words in questions.
The training will also consider some student answers to a selection of sample assessment
questions which have been marked, and commentary provided, by a member of senior examining
team.
Here you can see a reminder of the way in which our A level assessments are structured.
The slide also reminds you of the length of the exam papers for A-level science subjects.
Our examination papers use a variety of different question styles.
Here are the most common types of question which we use.
Multiple choice questions tend to make up a small proportion of the question papers,
with most other questions being short structured questions, usually worth between two and six
marks.
The question papers also include one or two longer questions, typically worth six marks;
although in biology these can be nine-mark questions.
These longer questions are marked in a slightly different way, using a levels-based mark scheme.
As you know, a proportion of questions on exam papers also assess mathematical and practical
skills.
Across Biology, Chemistry and Physics, all our question papers use command words in the
same way.
Our taxonomy of command words can be found at the back of our specifications.
The training will consider how we use these command words and look at the sorts of answers
that examiners would expect from students for some of these key command words.
As well as our initial SAMs, we produced a second set of specimen papers for each of
our three sciences.
These specimen papers were available to schools early in 2016.
We have now produced a third set of specimen papers covering of the A-level question papers
only.
These papers will be available, as a secure download, late in autumn 2016 for schools
to use as mock exams.
A number of schools has taken part in trialling these questions.
The student answers have been marked, and a commentary provided by a Senior Examiner.
The main focus of our Mocks Marking Training events will be to look at this sample material
and to use it to gain an understanding of the mark schemes for this set of specimen
papers.
The training will look at some examples of student replies to the questions and see how
our senior examiners have applied the mark scheme to these questions.
This means that when you use these papers as mock exams for your year 13 students you
can have some confidence in applying the mark schemes in the same way that our examiners
do when marking live student scripts.
One other advantage of trialling of these papers is that the mark schemes for this third
set of specimen papers have been altered in the light of typical student responses.
This process, which mirrors standardisation, allows this set of specimen papers to reflect
more closely the experience of the first set of A level papers in June 2017.
Part of the Mocks Marking training will look at how the original mark schemes have been
adapted in the light of student responses.
Here you can see an example of a student's answer, with some examiner commentary, that
we made available for the initial set of SAMs papers.
The Mocks Marking Training events will allow you to explore these sorts of responses in
more detail.
This may be particularly useful in helping you to understand the demands of the longer
levels-based questions.
The training will look at a selection of student responses for different questions across the
paper often looking at responses of different ability students, so that you are able to
see how the mark scheme differentiates between students of different abilities.
You'll have an opportunity to apply the mark schemes yourselves to student answers, to
give you confidence to apply them with your own student work.
Here at Pearson we are very keen to offer you the best possible support for our EDEXCEL
science qualifications.
We are fortunate to have two Subject Advisors for science who will be happy to help you
with any aspect of support for our A levels in Biology, Chemistry and Physics as well
as for any other EDEXCEL qualifications.
Contact details for Stephen and Julius are given here.
We hope that this short presentation has given you a taster of the sort of activities that
will form part of our Mocks Marking Training events.
These training events, which are half-day events, will be taking place at a number of
locations, as well as online, starting at the end of 2016 and continuing into the spring
of 2017.
All of the events will be specification specific so whether you are teaching Physics or Biology
A (Salters Nuffield) - we have the right event for you.
You can find out more about the training and book a place using the link on the slide.
We very much hope to see you at an event soon!