9. Analysis of marks

The Board of Examiners for Part C will assign USMs for each paper taken in Part C and may scale the raw marks to arrive at the USMs reported to candidates.

The examiners may choose to scale marks where in their academic judgement:

  • a paper was more difficult or easier than in previous years, and/or
  • a paper has generated a spread of marks which are not a fair reflection of student performance on the University's standard scale for the expression of agreed final marks, i.e. the marks do not reflect the qualitative marks descriptors.


Such scaling is used to ensure that all papers are fairly and equally rewarded.

When scaling the raw marks on a paper the examiners will consider the following:

  • the relative difficulty of the paper compared to the other Part C papers;
  • the report submitted by the assessor who set and marked the paper.

Examiners will use their academic judgement to ensure that appropriate USMs are awarded and may use further statistics to check that the marks assigned fairly reflect the students' performances on a paper.  Examiners may also review a sample of papers either side of the classification borderlines to ensure that the outcome of scaling is consistent with the qualitative marks descriptors.