Moderating five gap-fill responses
You are moderating Part 2 of the S3 end-of-term listening paper. It is a gap-fill based on a three-minute interview with a school librarian about the annual book fair. The rubric says: 'Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.'
The recording contains: 'We open on the seventeenth of March, and we're in the main hall from half past five - though the queue usually starts around a quarter past.' … 'Doctor Yip, our guest author, has asked for a couple of extra tables.' … 'Last year we took about fifteen thousand dollars.'
Five responses are on your desk: 21. Date of book fair: 'March 17th' 22. Doors open: '5.30' 23. Guest author's surname: 'Yeep' 24. Last year's takings: 'fifteen thousand' 25. Extra tables needed: 'a couple of tables'
The gap for 25 was written by a colleague as a number gap. Two markers have already asked you what to do.
1. Decide accept or reject for each of the five, give the principle you applied, and identify which of these is an item fault rather than a candidate fault.
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The marking principle first: a gap-fill tests listening, so accept any response that (a) carries the same meaning as the recording, (b) stays inside the word limit, and (c) cannot be confused with a different word or number. Apply the same rule to all 90 scripts, not case by case.
- 21 'March 17th' - accept. Same date as 'the seventeenth of March', two words, no ambiguity. The mark scheme must list both orders and both the ordinal and numeral forms.
- 22 '5.30' - accept. Equivalent to 'half past five'. Reject '5.15', which is the queue time and a deliberate distractor. If the item intends evening, print 'p.m.' after the gap; penalising students for information the paper never asked for is not defensible.
- 23 'Yeep' - reject, but flag the item. /jiːp/ could be spelt Yip, Yipp or Yeep; the recording never spells it. If we accept only 'Yip', we are marking Hong Kong surname conventions, not listening. Either the script spells it out or the mark scheme lists variants.
- 24 'fifteen thousand' - accept. Two words, same value. Reject 'fifty thousand': teen/ty confusion produces a different number, and the recording is clear enough to distinguish it.
- 25 'a couple of tables' - reject, and this is the item fault. It breaks the two-word limit, and worse, the recording gives no number at all. A candidate doing exactly what the task asks cannot produce the keyed answer. Withdraw the item and re-key the paper to 24 items.
2. Write the mark scheme entries for 22 and 23 as they would appear to markers, including the note you will circulate.
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Mark scheme as circulated:
22 (Doors open) - Accept: 5.30 / 5:30 / 5.30 pm / 5:30pm / half past five / 17:30. Reject: 5.15 / 5:15 / quarter past five (queue time); 5.30 am (contradicts context). Note: accept any punctuation of the time.
23 (Guest author's surname) - Key: Yip. Accept: Yip / yip / YIP. Also accept Yipp, Yeep, Yip with a full stop. Reject: Yap, Yeap, Yup, Ip, and any response that omits the initial consonant, because those are different names rather than different spellings.
Note to markers: we are accepting phonetically equivalent spellings on item 23 because the recording does not spell the name and we did not test spelling. Apply this to all scripts - if you have already marked a batch strictly, re-mark it. Any response that makes you hesitate should be logged with the script number rather than decided alone; three or more similar cases will be brought to the moderation meeting.
Why the entry is written this way: the mark scheme has to be decidable by someone who was not in the room. 'Accept reasonable spellings' is not usable at 11 p.m. with 90 scripts; listing specific variants is, and it makes the decision reviewable if a parent appeals.
3. What single change to the recording script would remove most of the remaining judgement calls, and what would you do about item 25?
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The script change: have the librarian spell the name - 'Doctor Yip - that's Y-I-P' - and have someone confirm the time as 'half past five in the evening'. Two short insertions remove the two places where markers currently have to exercise discretion, which is exactly what a mark scheme should minimise. A test of listening should not contain hidden spelling or a.m./p.m. decisions.
Caveat: re-recording means the paper cannot go out this term. If the recording is already duplicated, the cheaper fix is the expanded mark scheme, with the script change banked for next year's version. The decision should be made on the calendar, not on principle alone.
Item 25: withdraw it. The gap asks for a number, and the speaker says 'a couple of' - the candidate has no way to know whether we want 'two' or the phrase itself. If the item is to be kept in a later version, the script must say a number ('four extra tables'), and the gap should carry a cue such as 'Number of extra tables: ______'. Re-key the paper to 24 items and scale the total mark rather than carrying a broken item forward; carrying it forward with a lenient key would reward guessing and make the paper's reliability figure meaningless.