Applied Maths/Maths - using pencil in exams.

murria

A question on behalf of my son. He prefers to write in pencil for the above subjects, but someone has told him it's not allowed in the LC. Can anyone confirm if this is correct please?

bb1234567

Pencil fades so no its not allowed unfortunately, well thats what I heard. Im not 100% sure though

ELynch96

Ah god I hope this isn't the case

ELynch96

Ah god I hope this isn't the case

c0unterpart

I wouldnt risk it as pencil could fade but I know a guy last year who used a mechanical pencil in app maths,its much darker and doesnt fade.

Mr Pseudonym

DCG students, for example, do their exam in pencil, so I don't see why it would matter in other subjects. Given that there's no mention of it in the LC information booklet, it's almost a certainty there'd be no consequences to writing in pencil.

Anonymagician

You can write in pencil, there's just the danger of it being illegible or getting smudged/faded. If he feels more comfortable with pencil he's probably better off with it as long as it's dark. It'd be a shame to get upset or frustrated in the exam if he switched to pen now.

murria

I couldn't find anything that said it wasn't allowed, but that comment rattled him. He is going to use pencil, it would upset him if he couldn't. Thanks Mr Pseudonym and anonymagician.

Noccy_Mondy

There should be no problem using a pencil. Use a dark one though to be safe. Pencil can fade, but it won't have faded drastically before the exam has been corrected.

accountname

On our maths mocks the teacher made a note saying to use pen for the exams if at all possible. She was a corrector last year and said that some can be fairly hard to read, so if you are going to use pencil, make sure its fairly heavy.

Kyro

I have tests from first year done in pencil and they haven't faded at all so I don't see what all the fuss is about? I will be using pencil for all my exams anyway.

GillespieRoad

Wait I didn't realise this was an issue- I had planned to do it all in pencil. I did it in pencil for the mocks and it's still perfectly legible now. Unless it's a real issue for examiners? I find it much easier for space constraints..

spurious

It's an issue for examiners. That's why the SEC asks that people use blue or black biro.
If you can find a dark pencil that does not smudge, then use that, but ideally blue or black biro.

Peregrine

Yes, use a dark enough pencil. 2B or 3B would do.

If he plans on rubbing off any mistakes rather than crossing them out (I'd recommend leaving it crossed off but still legible), don't use a really dark pencil. You'd struggle to rub off 4 and 5B pencils.

h2005

If I recall correctly I done mine in pencil but wrote the final answer with pen.

Mr Pseudonym

spurious wrote: »

That's why the SEC asks that people use blue or black biro.

I can't find any such request on the SEC website.

EoghanIRL

Mr Pseudonym wrote: »

I can't find any such request on the SEC website.

Why pisś of an examiner with smudge marks and red and green pen?
Make their life easy .

Tesco TripleChicken

I've gotten used to doing maths in pencil recently, I feel more confident and for some reason I write neater (only in maths though). However we've been told we SHOULD write in pen since pencil can fade/smudge. I remember hearing from a teacher ages ago that "pencil can also be changed". I really doubt that kind of thing goes on (examiners editting students work) especially since the student can view their corrected exam, but it would be your word against theirs if an answer on your exam was changed by someone else. If an examiner requires a certain amount of grades from a batch of papers, maybe they would change something on yours to lower your mark? Pure speculation and probably not true but just something to consider.

ScummyMan

Surely using a dark pencil which you can't rub out defeats the purpose of using a pencil?
Just use pen, it's not as if you can't get more paper if you need to cross it out and try again.

Mr Pseudonym

EoghanIRL wrote: »

Why pisś of an examiner with smudge marks and red and green pen? Make their life easy .

That may be a valid proposition, but I was merely responding to the poster's claim that the SEC "requests" that one use a specific type of pen - evidence for which, I cannot find.

Tesco TripleChicken wrote: »

I've gotten used to doing maths in pencil recently, I feel more confident and for some reason I write neater (only in maths though). However we've been told we SHOULD write in pen since pencil can fade/smudge. I remember hearing from a teacher ages ago that "pencil can also be changed". I really doubt that kind of thing goes on (examiners editting students work) especially since the student can view their corrected exam, but it would be your word against theirs if an answer on your exam was changed by someone else. If an examiner requires a certain amount of grades from a batch of papers, maybe they would change something on yours to lower your mark? Pure speculation and probably not true but just something to consider.

As you acknowledge, it would be extraordinary if a corrector did alter a student's work. There's no requirement for an examiner to have a certain distribution of grades, so that wouldn't explain it. If it came to it, though, it would be possible to forensically analyse the script to see if an eraser had been used.

Tesco TripleChicken

Reply to OP: Inside page of my Engineering paper said answers must be in pen. Maths paper didn't say anything though.