7Balance of marks

Assessment Objective	Component (Marks)		Weighting for Whole Assessment
	Written Paper	Research Report
AO1 - to analyse and evaluate conclusions, arguments, reasoning and claims	16	8	30%
AO2 - to analyse and evaluate the evidence for conclusions, arguments, reasoning and claims	16	8	30%
AO3 – to assess the impact of research on personal perspectives	0	16	20%
AO4 – to communicate perspectives, information and research	0	16	20%
Total	32	48	80 (100%)

Total marks will be weight to 100.

8Language of assessment

The language of assessment will be English for both components.

4. Administration

All assessments must be conducted with regard to security of material and the protection of the reliability and validity of the assessments. A NIS administration handbook will be produced which will include such areas as:

• Test material and security

• Responsibilities of teachers, invigilators and administrators

• Setting up test rooms, material required for administering tests

• Appropriate venues for conducting written tests, orals and any practical tests

• Procedures for recording coursework

• Procedures for the moderation of coursework

• Invigilation procedures

• Post-administration procedures including material required for marking.

This handbook will ensure that tests are conducted in a standardised manner across all schools and that all learners, teachers, invigilators and managers are able to see that a fair, regulated process has been followed in administering the tests.

5. Marking

Mark schemes will be developed alongside the question papers.

All Examiners will use the same version of the mark scheme, as finalised during the standardisation process.

Checking of Examiners’ work will be sufficiently extensive and frequent to pick up errors or deviations from the normal application of the mark scheme. The Examiner’s work will be checked by CIE Expert and Principal Examiner from Centre for Pedagogical Measurements, NIS.

Paper 2 (Research report) will be marked by teachers in NIS and externally moderated according to NIS Moderation Procedures.

6 The grading process

The results of the assessment will be reported in the form of a grade for each syllabus examined. The grades will be A*, A, B, C, D and E, where A* is the highest grade and E is the lowest passing grade.

Grade U (‘ungraded’) will not represent a pass in a syllabus.

A learner’s syllabus Grade will be calculated directly from the total of their marks on the components that they took (weighted in accordance with the set specifications), not from the component Grades.

The key grades identified in the test specifications are Grades A, C and E and Grade Descriptors are provided for these. Descriptors for these grades are given because the knowledge, understanding and skills are distinctive at these grades and Grades B and D are points on a continuum.

The process for establishing judgemental grades is complex and time consuming and so for reasons of practicality Awarding Bodies identify key grades for this process. The arithmetic B boundary is set halfway between A and C and, similarly, the grade D boundary is set halfway between C and E.