A Job to be Shunned

For today's post, I am going to talk about my experience as a examiner. For most teachers, this is a job to be shunned.

I had been an 1119 English examiner for six years before I retired as a government teacher. Come to think of it, I don't how I sustained this long. Marking candidates' answer scripts is not an easy chore. You need to constantly keep the standard set out for you to follow. You must gauge all scripts as fairly as possible.

Before marking my share of answer scripts, we have to sit with our Chief Examiner for three days to do centralised marking. We will be marking dummy scripts and discuss marks given to see how close or how far we are from the marks determined by the overall chief. When our chief is satisfied with our marking, we will then be given our share of loads to be brought back and marked at home. However, we will have to submit thirty scripts to the chief so that he can do sample remarking to ascertain our standard of marking. If we are too lenient, we have to be stricter and if we are too stricter we have to be more lenient.

Marking 200 sets of answer scripts at home is both time-consuming and mind-taxing. On top of that, we have to give comments for the essays. Hence, it is a tough job to do. It is really a great relief when I managed to finish the last answer script allocated to me.

Despite the tedious job, I do find joy in marking well-written essays. I even gave perfect score to one student whose essay was very interesting and written with a wide vocabulary besides the apt use of words needed to make the essay shine among the others.