Acceptable Variants in Word Formation and Tense Items
In the lexis-and-grammar section of a mock paper, item 6 reads: 'The measure was widely criticised as ___ (AFFORD) for young families.' The key is 'unaffordable'. Of 32 scripts, 9 wrote 'unaffordability', 4 wrote 'affordless', 3 wrote 'unafordable' (single 'r'), and 16 were correct. Item 7 reads: 'Since 2019 the council ___ (INVEST) more in cycle lanes.' The key is 'has invested'; 7 students wrote 'invested', 5 wrote 'has been investing', and one wrote 'is investing'. Each item is worth 1 point with no half marks. The head of department wants a written policy distinguishing genuine alternatives from errors of word class, spelling and tense selection before the next marking meeting.
1. Decide how each of the four AFFORD variants should be marked, with reasons.
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The slot after 'as ... for young families' requires an adjective. (1) 'unaffordable' - correct: negative prefix un- + afford + -able. (2) 'unaffordability' - wrong: it is a noun, so it cannot fill the adjective slot; the student has formed a real word but the wrong word class. (3) 'affordless' - wrong: -less is not productive with afford, and the intended meaning is not 'without afford'. (4) 'unafordable' - the right word class and meaning but a spelling error. The policy question is whether spelling is a separate criterion. If the paper tests word formation only, do not double-penalise; if the rubric states that spelling must be correct, mark it wrong. Either way the rule must be written down and applied to all items, because inconsistency here is what students challenge.
2. Decide how the three INVEST variants should be marked, and explain the grammatical reasoning.
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The time frame is 'since 2019', which reaches up to the present, so the present perfect is the default. (1) 'has invested' - correct. (2) 'has been investing' - acceptable if the focus is on repeated or ongoing activity; with 'more' the simple perfect is more natural, but the progressive is grammatical and does not change the basic meaning. Accept it, and note in the key that both perfect forms are allowed. (3) 'invested' - wrong: the past simple presents the action as finished and disconnected from the present, which conflicts with 'since 2019'. (4) 'is investing' - wrong: it describes a current situation but excludes the period from 2019 to now. The general rule is: accept a variant only if it is grammatical in the slot and compatible with the time reference; do not accept a tense that contradicts an explicit time expression.
3. Draft a one-sentence marking policy that covers both items and could be circulated to markers.
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'A variant is accepted only when it belongs to the required word class and is grammatical with the time reference in the sentence; real words in the wrong class, invented derivations and tenses that contradict an explicit time expression are marked wrong, while spelling is penalised only where the rubric names it as a criterion.' This sentence does three things: it gives a positive test (class + time reference), it lists the failure types seen in the scripts, and it prevents double penalties. It also settles the 'has been investing' case in advance, which is the variant most likely to produce disagreement between markers. Circulate it with the two items attached as worked examples so that the policy is concrete rather than abstract.