The Written Response That Is Accurate but Off-Topic
In the external written examination, students answer an extended-response question in Russian on a prescribed theme. The prompt asks students to discuss how a Russian writer uses a specific setting to develop a theme, and to support the argument with evidence from the text. One candidate, Sofia, writes a fluent, grammatically accurate 280-word response in Russian. Her Russian is among the strongest in the cohort: complex sentences, correct aspect, idiomatic phrasing. However, she writes about a different work from the one named in the prompt, and her argument, while coherent, never addresses the specified setting. The marking guide allocates marks across Content (relevance, argument, textual evidence) and Language (accuracy, range, fluency). The examiner must apply the guide consistently across the cohort.
1. How should the examiner distribute marks between Content and Language for Sofia's response? Justify each decision.
Read the worked answer
Apply each criterion independently, as the guide requires.
- Content: The response is about the wrong work and never addresses the specified setting. On relevance it fails the core demand of the prompt. Argument quality and textual evidence cannot rescue a response that answers a different question - coherent reasoning about an irrelevant text does not meet the Content descriptors. Content should be placed at or near the bottom of the scale. The examiner must not reward fluency of argument where the argument is off-target.
- Language: The guide marks Language on the Russian the candidate produces, not on whether the content is right. Sofia's Russian is accurate, varied, and fluent. She should receive a high Language mark for the language actually demonstrated. Deducting Language marks because the content is wrong would be double-penalising and would breach criterion separation.
Why this matters for consistency: if the examiner drops Language marks to "punish" the off-topic answer, Sofia is treated more harshly than a candidate with weaker Russian who made the same content error. The guide's separation exists precisely to prevent that. The result - low Content, high Language - is the correct, if uncomfortable, outcome.
2. A colleague suggests giving partial Content credit because Sofia clearly knows Russian literature well. How should the examiner respond?
Read the worked answer
Acknowledge the observation, then apply the guide.
Knowing literature well is not the same as answering this question. The prompt specified a particular work and a particular setting. Sofia's response demonstrates broader knowledge but does not demonstrate the skill the question tests: analysing how a named setting develops a theme in a named text. Partial credit for general literary knowledge would reward something the task did not ask for and would disadvantage candidates who answered the actual question.
However, the examiner should check one thing: does the marking guide contain any relevance band that awards a small base mark for a response that engages with the prescribed theme even if it misreads the specific prompt? If the guide has such a band, Sofia may sit at its floor rather than at zero. The examiner must apply whatever the guide actually says, not a personal view of fairness.
Process point: if the examiner believes the guide is ambiguous on this scenario, the correct step is to refer it to the supervising examiner or marking coordinator before finalising, so the whole cohort is treated identically. Individual examiners should not improvise a resolution that other examiners won't share.