Junior Cert Results

UnknownEntity

So my friend and I are doing our Junior Certs this year and he was a bit angry when he found out that we didn't get exact percentages- only grades. I personally don't mind that much since I have a good idea of what I'm going to get but he wanted an answer as he's worried that he might hit the wrong side of the borderline-84 or 83%. I searched for answers online but I couldn't find anything. Has anyone a clue why they don't give us percentages? Thanks

conorfinn1

I'm not 100% on this but every year they want a bellcurve. If alot of people are getting 86% or so, They'll bring some of those candidates down to a B, if the examiners don't think they deserve the A (basically if you just scraped an A) and if they did give a percentage like 88% And one candidate would get an A there'd be massive talks saying "Oh I got an B but sure 88 is an A" you see there needs to be a certain amount of A's, B's, C's, D's etc every year.

Basically if everyone got an A or so, an A would lose its worth and would be like too easy to get, and so they mark candidates down a grade. as i said which is just basically to stop people appealing results that were brought down for many reasons probably.

I am not 100% sure on this but this is what i think why they do it anyways.

UnknownEntity

conorfinn1 wrote:

Basically if everyone got an A or so, an A would lose its worth and would be like too easy to get, and so they mark candidates down a grade. as i said which is just basically to stop people appealing results that were brought down for many reasons probably.

Yeah I understand that, that's fair enough.

conorfinn1 wrote:

I'm not 100% on this but every year they want a bellcurve. If alot of people are getting 86% or so, They'll bring some of those candidates down to a B, if the examiners don't think they deserve the A (basically if you just scraped an A) and if they did give a percentage like 88% And one candidate would get an A there'd be massive talks saying "Oh I got an B but sure 88 is an A" you see there needs to be a certain amount of A's, B's, C's, D's etc every year.

I still think it's unfair that they do this, can't they change the marking scheme around and then give us our percentages?

conorfinn1 wrote:

I am not 100% sure on this but this is what i think why they do it anyways.

spurious

Sometimes, depending on instructions, the examiners will go back and see if any D/Cs can become Cs or B/As become As.

People will have forgotten what you got by November. Don't make it too big of a deal.

UnknownEntity

spurious wrote:

Sometimes, depending on instructions, the examiners will go back and see if any D/Cs can become Cs or B/As become As.

spurious wrote:

People will have forgotten what you got by November. Don't make it too big of a deal.

But it's still not clear to me why they can't give us percentages rather than grades. Even A1 or A2 instead of just A would be good too, like the Leaving Cert.

spurious

You could always email them and ask.

FWIW, the marks are not entered by the correctors as percentages either.