Not completing the CXC CSEC English A exam and your chances of achieving a grade I

Submitted by Kathy-ann Daniel on 19 May 2012 - 2:26am

Not completing the CXC CSEC English A exam and your chances of achieving a grade I

This blog post is to answer that repeated question: "If I don't complete all the questions in the exam, can I still get a grade 1?"

The short answer to that question is, "Yes you can... but it is very unlikely."

Let me explain using our CXC CSEC English A marking scheme table.

I am going to put "John Smith's" exam mark at the very end of the table below, so you can see how non-completion affects his exam grade.

CXC English A Exam
Exam questions
Question Type
Maximum marks
John Smith's marks

Section one
1 question (compulsory)

Summary writing
30
25
Section two
2 questions (compulsory)
Short answer
Reading
Comprehension
30
0
Section three
1 question (chosen from 3)
Short Story/
descriptive Essay
35
25
Section four
1 question (chosen from 2)
Persuasive Essay
35
25
Total
5 questions
130
75

table 1.

You can see that not completing the reading comprehension questions really causes his total marks for the paper to drop. Even though he does fairly well on all the other questions on the paper, his total marks for the whole paper is 75 marks out of a total possible 130 marks. This means that John Smith makes just over 55% of the marks for the paper.

Let's look at another scenario. Let's say that John Smith doesn't do just "fairly well" on the other questions, let's say he does excellent, he gets almost full marks on all the other questions on the CXC CSEC English A paper 2. He just doesn't complete the reading comprehension questions. What would his marks possibly look like?

They might look like this:

CXC English A Exam
Exam questions
Question Type
Maximum marks
John Smith's marks

Section one
1 question (compulsory)

Summary writing
30
28
Section two
2 questions (compulsory)
Short answer
Reading
Comprehension
30
0
Section three
1 question (chosen from 3)
Short Story/
descriptive Essay
35
33
Section four
1 question (chosen from 2)
Persuasive Essay
35
33
Total
5 questions
130
94

table 2.

We can see in our table above, that even with excellent marks - really excellent marks - on all his other answers, John Smith still has not gotten enough marks on the paper to get close to the maximum marks possible (he hasn't broken through 100). He received 72% of the maximum marks for the paper.

This will definitely have a negative effect his chances of getting a grade I on the CXC English A exam.

"If you do only 50% of the paper you can only
get 50% of the marks" - George Turnbull "The exam doctor"

Okay, I am going to show you a different scenario. Let's say that someone else, "Mark Brown", isn't very good at English. He tries very hard, but he finds it a difficult subject. His marks are so-so but he completes the paper. Let's look at his potential marks:

CXC English A Exam
Exam questions
Question Type
Maximum marks
Mark Brown's marks

Section one
1 question (compulsory)

Summary writing
30
20
Section two
2 questions (compulsory)
Short answer
Reading
Comprehension
30
20
Section three
1 question (chosen from 3)
Short Story/
descriptive Essay
35
23
Section four
1 question (chosen from 2)
Persuasive Essay
35
23
Total
5 questions
130
86

table 3.

You can see in the above table that even though Mark Brown is not great at English, he still gets more marks for his paper than John Smith when John doesn't answer the reading comprehension questions on the paper (table 1).
So, even though John Smith may be better at English than Mark Brown, when he doesn't properly manage his time in the exam room, when he doesn't answer all the required questions on the paper, he, John Smith, puts himself at a serious disadvantage fo getting the grade that he wants.

"Spend only the allotted time on each exam
question, leave the question when the time is up"- George Turnbull "The exam doctor"

Final scenario...smile....yeah, yeah, final. Let's say that John Smith, who is good at English, completes all the required questions on the paper. He manages his time well in the exam room and completes all the required questions. Take a look at the table below to see his likely potential CXC CSEC English A exam marks.

CXC English A Exam
Exam questions
Question Type
Maximum marks
John Smith's marks

Section one
1 question (compulsory)

Summary writing
30
25
Section two
2 questions (compulsory)
Short answer
Reading
Comprehension
30
25
Section three
1 question (chosen from 3)
Short Story/
descriptive Essay
35
30
Section four
1 question (chosen from 2)
Persuasive Essay
35
30
Total
5 questions
130
110

table 4.

You can see that John Smith receives over 100 marks and could probably receive higher. So what were all the tables about? To show you in very real terms that completing all the required questions in the CXC CSEC English A exam can make a huge difference in your marks and the grades you receive.

I hope this answers the question.

Advisory: Please be advised, these are NOT real grades or real CXC CSEC English A exam candidates. The grades and names were created to explore potential exam marks scenarios based upon candidate performance and exam completion.

Fivestar

guest (not verified) 27 May 2012 - 12:50pm

What is the grading scheme for CXC English? What percentage is required for grade 1- 3?

guest (not verified) 11 June 2012 - 11:31am

hi, so i did every question on the paper but i ran out of time on the Persuasive essay-my essay was very short but i did make some points- and i know i scored within 45-55 out of 60 on the Multiple Choice. Can i get a grade 1 still?

guest (not verified) 24 February 2013 - 10:14am

So how come I got b for undersanding and e for expression and I still fail english?

By accident I wrote half of my enlish paper 2 in pencil (out of the 4 sections i wrote the summary and the comprehensive section in paper), is there hope for me to get a 1 or a 2, i am good student in english and i think i did well. but me using the pencil makes me nervous.

As far as I am aware, using a pencil should not influence the grade you get on your CXC English A exam. While it is preferred that exam candidates use pens, I do not think that you lose marks for writing in pencil, if you have no other choice.

Admin

guest (not verified) 20 May 2015 - 4:16pm

I did evergthing on my.math paper 2in pencil and the reading comprehensions in pencil on my english paper 2 will this affect my grades. Please i hope not

guest (not verified) 15 May 2018 - 7:28pm

I recently sat the 2018 English A exam and completed all four sections in HB pencil. A stupid mistake, I realize but will my paper be marked? Will I have to resit the exam in January because of this?

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