Faulty Marking in Examinations

Southland Times, Issue 24114, 1 May 1940, Page 6

Faulty Marking in Examinations

Revelations of faulty marking by examiners of arithmetic in the University Entrance Examination for 1939 have now been followed by official action. The executive committee of the University Senate is reported this morning to have passed a resolution censuring the examiners, and recommending that they be debarred from acting in the same capacity “during the pleasure of the Senate, but in no case for less than five years.” Candidates and parents who have suffered delay and disappointment will endorse this recommendation. Nevertheless the question at once arises whether or not deterrent action can be a substitute for remedial measures. It is only right that examiners who have been found guilty of “a lack of responsibility

and reasonable care” should no longer be able to cause loss of time and opportunity'for students. But the deplorable blunders in the marking of the arithmetic scripts are not new occurrences: they are merely abnormal examples of mistakes which occur, to some extent, almost every year. If it is not one paper, it may be another that suffers from careless marking. And although errors cannot be altogether excluded from an examination which is taken annually by five or six thousand candidates, it should at least be possible to keep them much lower than now seems to be the case, even in a more fortunate year than 1939. According to the statement issued by the executive committee, anomalies in the marking of arithmetic were discovered before the examination results were announced, and fears of inaccuracy were confirmed when 50 scripts, selected at random, were checked by a professor of mathematics. Members of the general public may feel inclined to ask if it is not possible to improve the present system of marking, or at least to establish a method of checking the results while there is still time to rectify mistakes. The University Senate is probably aware of difficulties that escape the attention of the layman. But the question is not merely one of internal policy for the university: it has become a matter of public interest, and there can be no complete removal of anxiety until something better than the carefulness of examiners prevents the repetition of large-scale blunders.