Examiners knowing less than their students

An interesting example here of a student done a dis-service by an inexperienced examiner shackled to mark schemes and rigid assessment criteria.

A colleague from another school told me recently about one (popular) question on government borrowing on the June 2010 AQA Unit 4 macro paper. The marker has written next to a superb explanation of Ricardian equivalence and the impact of deficit finance (surely strong evaluation on issues of government borrowing) ‘perhaps, probably not’! How sad that bright, ambitious, interested and interesting students are condemned to have their work marked (?) by examiners who have little feel for the subject? Little wonder that so many examiners fall foul of the “default to level 3” disease .... and exam boards soak up the money and allow it to happen…...

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