Poor handwriting and use of the wrong colour pen may be hampering students’ chances of exam success, according to complaints from examiners marking this year’s papers.

As tens of thousands of pupils await their GCSE results due on Thursday, an examiners’ report for the AQA exam board has highlighted the struggles that markers face with onscreen evaluation and illegible answers.

Most exam scripts or papers are now scanned and distributed electronically, and then marked onscreen using software systems provided by the examination boards. Onscreen marking is made more difficult if handwriting cannot be scanned clearly, particularly if pupils have used blue or green pens.

A report based on feedback from markers of this year’s A-level papers for AQA said: “Once again, examiners commented that the answers of many students were difficult to read. In some cases this was the result of poor handwriting or untidy and disorganised presentation. In other cases it resulted when students had not followed the instruction on the front of each examination paper to use black ink or black ballpoint pen.”

The report added: “Very small or faint handwriting can be difficult to read and may lead to issues when examiners are awarding marks.”

Exam candidates are clearly told on the front of their papers: “Use black ink or black ballpoint pen.” But many continue to use pens with blue ink, which may become less clear when scanned.

One teacher who marked scripts on screen said the problem appeared to be worse this year. “Some of the ones I marked this year were really hard to read. It does make it harder when the writing is bad, of course. Certainly makes you earn your £3 for the script,” he said.

An AQA spokesperson said: “Each year an extremely small number of scripts cannot be read on screen by examiners. Under these circumstances, we request the original script from our scanning centre and it is marked on paper by an examiner.”



One experienced teacher said there was a problem with student handwriting in general. “While the scanning resolution isn’t great for online marking, some of the handwriting is so shoddy if you see it in real life it probably won’t help much.”

Few surprises are expected from this year’s crop of GCSEs, with results in England now tied to the performance of the same year group of pupils in key stage two exams at the end of primary school.

The 2011 key stage two results showed a small overall improvement in English and maths in state schools, which suggests a marginally better performance in GCSEs. But grades in the highest levels for English fell, which may mean a dip in the proportion of As and Bs awarded this year.

In maths, the 2011 results showed a slight improvement at all levels, which would suggest an upturn in grades in GCSE maths if the policy known as “comparable outcomes” holds.

Last year 63.3% of all GCSE entrants gained a C or higher in maths, and 65.4% gained a C or above in English. In England alone, 64.1% passed maths and 65.3% passed English with a C or better.



This year’s results are the last for the current format of GSCEs for maths and English, which will be replaced next year by exams graded on a 9-1 scale in England.

This year schools will judge their results on a new performance measure known as Progress 8, which charts how well pupils performed compared with expectations based on their key stage two results. It replaces the government’s previous measure, the proportion of pupils achieving C or higher in five GCSE subjects including English and maths.

School-level results under the new Progress 8 measure will not be available until the Department for Education releases its official calculations in a few months’ time.