BS Science Marking Criteria (1 Viewer)

[laodeming]

Hey guys!

I've got trials next week and going through some phys and chem past papers, I've run into a bit of a predicament. I know all the content and syllabus points, so there are very rarely any questions that I'm unsure of when going through a paper. But when I mark the papers, I inevitably lose marks due to some arbitrary or non-obvious marking criteria that is not even implied in the question. You guys know what I mean; things like not including at least 2 chemical equations in a 5 marker, or not providing enough reasons for or against in a discuss question, etc.

Is it possible to stop losing marks like this? Those of you who've gotten state ranks and/or regularly score close to 100% in your assessments: how do you do it? Given that I'm quite confident with the material in the syllabus, it frustrates me that I'm still dropping marks in a way for which there is no obvious solution.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated

 

[InteGrand]

Hey guys!

I've got trials next week and going through some phys and chem past papers, I've run into a bit of a predicament. I know all the content and syllabus points, so there are very rarely any questions that I'm unsure of when going through a paper. But when I mark the papers, I inevitably lose marks due to some arbitrary or non-obvious marking criteria that is not even implied in the question. You guys know what I mean; things like not including at least 2 chemical equations in a 5 marker, or not providing enough reasons for or against in a discuss question, etc.

Is it possible to stop losing marks like this? Those of you who've gotten state ranks and/or regularly score close to 100% in your assessments: how do you do it? Given that I'm quite confident with the material in the syllabus, it frustrates me that I'm still dropping marks in a way for which there is no obvious solution.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated

 

[laodeming]

Yeah, guessing marking criteria is a suggestion that I've heard before, but I haven't heard any concrete strategies aside from essentially looking at past markschemes and memorising the patterns (as you suggested). It seems like a crapton of information to have to memorise in addition to the content itself, so I'm curious to see whether anyone has managed to implement some sort of heuristic or shortcut in terms of anticipating criteria.

I've also come across criteria that penalises you for extraneous info, which rules out the 'scattergun' approach