Mark boundaries in different schools...

[Guest iber2468]

Well said Dooga!

BTW, I'm thinking about applying to UBC Commerce, with a 39 (History SL - 6, Chem SL - 7, French SL - 7, English HL - 7, Math HL - 5, Physics HL - 5). Percentage-wise I'm at a 92 average, with 6 A's and 1 B, in Math. How sad. My EC's are excellent. What are my chances for BCOMM?

[Dooga]

Well said Dooga!

BTW, I'm thinking about applying to UBC Commerce, with a 39 (History SL - 6, Chem SL - 7, French SL - 7, English HL - 7, Math HL - 5, Physics HL - 5). Percentage-wise I'm at a 92 average, with 6 A's and 1 B, in Math. How sad. My EC's are excellent. What are my chances for BCOMM?

I'm pretty sure you will get in

[Guest iber2468]

^ Yay thanks! *crosses fingers*

[Wanda(Not Alvin)]

IB students at my school only get their marks scaled up if their work habits are good...

My progress in IB so far, let's see...

At the end of the first term I had 80 CAS hours, 73% in Maths, 94% in French, 99% in English, 100% in TOK, 100% in Spanish A.I, 94% in Biology and 91% in History.

[Forester]

weird. u got 99% in english, i always thought they go up by 4%s...

[Wanda(Not Alvin)]

weird. u got 99% in english, i always thought they go up by 4%s...

I think it was holistic...

I got full marks in every assignment, but perfection doesn't exist.

[Mr. Shiver]

Where exactly does this misunderstanding about mark conversions stem from, anyway? The Languages Department at my school has the same problem where they convert backwards (despite the fact that every other department determines the levels properly):

7: 96 - 100

6: 90 - 95

5: 80 - 89

4: 70 - 79

3: 60 - 69

...so that you have to get those percentages listed in order to get the corresponding level, rather than use the international grade boundaries for a subject, where you would need for example an 80+ in order to get a 7, which is THEN supposed to be converted to a 96 or up according to provincial conversions.

I wondered if maybe the problem had to do with the fact that the English teachers don't want to use a wide marking range so as not to receive complaints from students getting low marks, but it seems that all across Canada various schools are completely misinterpreting university and provincial mark translations. Is there any way to make them realize what they're doing wrong so that our predicted grades aren't woefully inaccurate?

Edited April 20, 2008 by Mr. Shiver

[Mandiloquence]

Hmmmm, our school doesn't use those boundaries at all.

Our grading system is:

A+ = 98-100

A= 93-97

A- = 90-92

B = 80-89

C= 70-79

D = 60-69

F= Anything lower than a 60

That may be because we don't do mock exams or past IB papers/questions, we just do "normal" work with IB material...maybe that's why we don't do well on our IB exams. x[

Darn underfunded public schools.

Well, I can't really say that...our school is putting a huge REVOLVING statue in the football stadium of a dead football coach, but we don't have enough (or currrent) textbooks.

Oops, sorry. [/rant]

[__inthemaking]

My school uses reverse translation..basically you have to get the mark inside the boundary first before being predicted that.

So I got a 96% in bio SL and I was predicted 7 because 7 is 96-100.

If you get 90-95, then you get predicted a 6.

etc.

This happens for ALL of our subjects, which really sucks for some students because we all have to take english HL and most people have their weakest subject in english..so people are predicted like 3 and 4.

[Mr. Shiver]

I don't see this happening anywhere other than Canada, and I want to know where the source for this "reverse translation" instruction to schools comes from.

[Mr. Shiver]

I don't see this happening anywhere other than Canada, and I want to know where the source for this "reverse translation" instruction to schools comes from.

I still want to find this out, since I find it hard to believe so many schools/subject departments just completely (maybe deliberately—like a conspiracy!) misinterpret the conversion chart. And reverse translation screws up predicted grades. Can anyone help me here?

Edited August 9, 2008 by Mr. Shiver

[__inthemaking]

I still want to find this out, since I find it hard to believe so many schools/subject departments just completely (maybe deliberately—like a conspiracy!) misinterpret the conversion chart. And reverse translation screws up predicted grades. Can anyone help me here?

Reverse translation actually isn't that bad, it sure forces you to do well in school during the rest of the school year and not just rely on your exams.

I was predicted 41 points (776666 + 3 bonus pts)..so I still managed to get good predicteds even with reverse translation.

[Mr. Shiver]

Reverse translation actually isn't that bad, it sure forces you to do well in school during the rest of the school year and not just rely on your exams.

Meh, that's still not a good enough excuse to try and fool the students if you ask me.

Teachers are just worried about overpredicting (which happens when they mark too easy), students having inflated grades on our tentative report cards (which happens because of the high mark translations), and keeping their jobs (they probably don't want to get fired for giving too many 90s). Schools should use the most recent component grade boundaries and then mark at the level of difficulty that makes those boundaries applicable—the whole purpose of past papers and teacher support material is to be able to do exactly that. Teachers also wouldn't have to worry about the marks being too high, because they only give the raw marks—which wouldn't be high enough to warrant concern. But instead of doing that, we the students have to suffer by trying to acheve near-impossible raw marks (which IB English teacher in their right mind would give a student a raw 96 or higher?! I have yet to see it happen in Ontario) to get that already-elusive-enough level 7.

Anyway, I'm tired of being lied to by my Languages department and then told alternately that 1) it's for my own good, and 2) to stop worrying about it. Because 1) it's not—people who are underpredicted can actually start believing they aren't good enough (even if they are), thus losing morale and underperforming, and 2) I won't—if my admission into certain universities (mainly overseas) depends on my predicted grades then I want to have the assurance that the levels I'm getting accurately reflect how I'm performing.

Sorry, I got carried away with my rambling.

Edited August 9, 2008 by Mr. Shiver

[hamani]

Well I do not really know why my school has a bit different mark boundaries but here they are:

A - above 80%

B- 68-79%

C - 54-67%

D- 45-53%

F - below 45%

and

All IB and AP subjects receive a weighted grade as follows:

5.0 - A

4.0 - B

3.0 - C

2.0 - D

0.0 - F

[__inthemaking]

Meh, that's still not a good enough excuse to try and fool the students if you ask me.

Teachers are just worried about overpredicting (which happens when they mark too easy), students having inflated grades on our tentative report cards (which happens because of the high mark translations), and keeping their jobs (they probably don't want to get fired for giving too many 90s). Schools should use the most recent component grade boundaries and then mark at the level of difficulty that makes those boundaries applicable—the whole purpose of past papers and teacher support material is to be able to do exactly that. Teachers also wouldn't have to worry about the marks being too high, because they only give the raw marks—which wouldn't be high enough to warrant concern. But instead of doing that, we the students have to suffer by trying to acheve near-impossible raw marks (which IB English teacher in their right mind would give a student a raw 96 or higher?! I have yet to see it happen in Ontario) to get that already-elusive-enough level 7.

Anyway, I'm tired of being lied to by my Languages department and then told alternately that 1) it's for my own good, and 2) to stop worrying about it. Because 1) it's not—people who are underpredicted can actually start believing they aren't good enough (even if they are), thus losing morale and underperforming, and 2) I won't—if my admission into certain universities (mainly overseas) depends on my predicted grades then I want to have the assurance that the levels I'm getting accurately reflect how I'm performing.

Sorry, I got carried away with my rambling.

No, it's fine haha. I too was really annoyed with the whole reverse translation thing for chem..because I KNEW that I would be able to get a 7 in chem yet I was predicted a 6 because I was getting 90 (untranslated). I had a 91 in english (untranslated) so I was also predicted a 6 there..but I was fine with that because a 7 in HL english is pretty difficult to achieve, it really depends on your examiner and how much they like your interpretation/style of writing.

We all moaned over the low predictions for chem..nobody got predicted a 7 at my school. But ultimately it didn't affect our uni acceptances because Ontario unis look at your regular marks first anyways and hardly even look at predicteds. I agree that it's a whole different matter entirely if you're applying overseas, however.

Edited August 10, 2008 by __inthemaking

[master135]

Why dont schools use grade boundaries for things like IAs. My english teacher gave me a level 4 on my IOP, when according to the IB grade boundary its a 6.

No, it's fine haha. I too was really annoyed with the whole reverse translation thing for chem..because I KNEW that I would be able to get a 7 in chem yet I was predicted a 6 because I was getting 90 (untranslated). I had a 91 in english (untranslated) so I was also predicted a 6 there..but I was fine with that because a 7 in HL english is pretty difficult to achieve, it really depends on your examiner and how much they like your interpretation/style of writing.

We all moaned over the low predictions for chem..nobody got predicted a 7 at my school. But ultimately it didn't affect our uni acceptances because Ontario unis look at your regular marks first anyways and hardly even look at predicteds. I agree that it's a whole different matter entirely if you're applying overseas, however.

Why wouldnt reverse translation affect uni acceptance in ontario. The % mark I was given in english was based on the reverse translation of assignments, esp the IA. So both the predicted and the % mark were off.

[__inthemaking]

Why dont schools use grade boundaries for things like IAs. My english teacher gave me a level 4 on my IOP, when according to the IB grade boundary its a 6.

Why wouldnt reverse translation affect uni acceptance in ontario. The % mark I was given in english was based on the reverse translation of assignments, esp the IA. So both the predicted and the % mark were off.

I guess it only works out if you get high marks normally. Like for me, I got a 91% in english, so I was predicted 6 based on reverse translation. But some of my friends got 70% in english so they were predicted a 4...but they actually ended up with a 5.

If you can do really well in your strongest subjects though, then reverse translation won't pull you down as much. Because then your strong subjects will be predicted high even with reverse translation and only your weaker subjects will have low predicteds.

[Mr. Shiver]

It really depends on which % mark you consider the "normal" one. If you think the raw mark is the normal one, then reverse translation doesn't seem like a big deal. But if you think the converted mark (real translation, not reverse translation) is the normal one, then all the marks seem lower.

If you ask me, I'd say the raw mark should be the normal one for the teachers (to show that they're not giving inflated grades), and the translated mark should be the normal one for the students (for uni application and whatnot). And that's usually what happens in my school, unless the teachers screw everything up with reverse translation.

Actually, I'm beginning to think there really is no instruction to do reverse translation, and that it's probably just the teachers themselves misinterpreting the IBSO conversion scale, either because they don't understand IB procedures or because they don't want to do things the proper way for whatever reason.

Edited August 13, 2008 by Mr. Shiver

[moneyfaery]

Actually, I'm beginning to think there really is no instruction to do reverse translation, and that it's probably just the teachers themselves misinterpreting the IBSO conversion scale, either because they don't understand IB procedures or because they don't want to do things the proper way for whatever reason.

Wasn't the concern about drastically changing grade boundaries causing "inaccurate" marks? Kinda silly considering they only inflate/deflate slightly by ~2%. With the way language dept. teachers are doing it, we've gonna have severely underpredicted marks... which takes away from the purpose of predicted marks in the first place.

[Mr. Shiver]

Wasn't the concern about drastically changing grade boundaries causing "inaccurate" marks?

Well, if the teachers were to continue marking they way they do using IB grade boundaries, then our marks would be inflated. They don't want to change the way they mark, so that's why they try to use reverse translation as a compromise. The slightest changes in mark cause drastic changes in the level (for example 26 is a 5, 27-28 is a 6, and 29 is a 7). As a result, our grades are underpredicted relative to the IOP and practice IOP marks we're getting, but the IOP marks themselves (mainly at the low end) are inflated for some people. It's really messed up.

That's why I wrote earlier that they should just mark at an IB level of difficulty, which means using a wider marking range to correspond with the proper IB grade boundaries. Otherwise, when IB sees our marks, we'll get moderated down in addition to being underpredicted, which is like being doubly screwed over.

Edited August 25, 2008 by Mr. Shiver