Rationale document

Centre number

Centre name

Level and title of syllabus

Syllabus code

Why you must complete the Rationale Document for each syllabus
The Rationale Document explains how you have determined school-assessed grades for your candidates in
the June 2021 series, by showing what evidence was chosen and how marks were awarded. The Rationale
Document outlines the steps in considering candidate evidence and determining school-assessed grades for
your candidates.
You must complete a Rationale Document for each syllabus. We will need to see the Rationale Document
when we select your centre for quality assurance checks of the school-assessed grades that you send to us.
Failure to complete and submit the Rationale Document correctly may result in delays to your candidates
receiving grades.

Who completes the Rationale Document for each syllabus

The Rationale Document should be completed by the Head of Department for each syllabus (or by the
teacher if there is no Head of Department), to explain to us how you have arrived at the school-assessed
grades for your candidates for the June 2021 exam series.

When you must submit the Rationale Document for each syllabus
We will email you, explaining which syllabuses from your centre have been chosen for quality assurance
checks. The email will explain how to upload the Rationale Document for these syllabuses and how to upload
the relevant candidate work.
You must complete a Rationale Document for each syllabus for which you are submitting entries and keep
them for your records. You only need to send us the Rationale Document for the syllabuses that we request.
Do not send the Rationale Document or candidate work to us if you have not been asked to do so.

What your completed Rationale Document must include

The Rationale Document must provide information about the areas below as relevant to the syllabus and
your centre.
A Selection of work
B Coverage of syllabus content and assessment objectives
C Security and authenticity of work
D Managing your marking (standardisation)
E Awarding grades to your students
F Access arrangements and special consideration

What happens after submitting the Rationale Document

Rationale Document 1
We will use the Rationale Document and candidate evidence that you submit to check the school-assessed
grades that you have submitted. Once we have reviewed the evidence that you have submitted, we will
contact you by email if we require further information.

Rationale Document 2
Private candidates
If you have accepted entries for private candidates, please explain how their work has been obtained,
selected and authenticated, then go on to answer the rest of the questions in this Rationale Document.
We have not accepted entries for private candidates for this syllabus.

The following questions apply to all candidates, including private candidates.

A Selection of work
You must make sure that each candidate is aware of the evidence used to determine their grade in
advance of that grade being submitted to Cambridge. This transparency should enable candidates to
raise any errors or circumstances relating to particular pieces of evidence to be taken into account in
advance of submitting grades to us. You should take into account any statements they make in relation to
the evidence. Although you may share marks associated with individual pieces of evidence, you must not
share with students the grades submitted to us before results are released.
1. Please explain what pieces of work you have used for this syllabus and why you decided to include
these in the evidence.
If you have used different pieces of evidence for different candidates, explain how and why this has
been done.
The pieces of work that are included for all candidates are the following:
A. Past Paper of November 2020 series Paper 2 Directed Writing and Composition (Component 22) -
This paper was conducted into two different meetings for the students to take in which each session
ran for an hour of test facilitation to complete the 2-hour requirement by Cambridge. This particular
paper is used as the students’ Unit Test 1 (Section A) and 2 (Section B) for the third term. In this
paper, students were able to show their mastery of writing AOs 1 - 5 and reading AOs 1- 3, 5.
B. Past Paper of June 2020 series Paper 1 Reading (Component 12) - This paper serves as the final
exam/mock exam of the candidates. The official marking scheme for this paper was followed and the
required time allotment which is two hours was observed. This paper, reading AOs R1-R5 and writing
AOs W1-W5 are being tested. The said AOs are spread throughout the three questions provided in the
examination.

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B Coverage of syllabus content and assessment objectives
We have said that evidence should cover as broad a range as possible of the assessment objectives and
syllabus content.
2. For each candidate’s portfolio for this syllabus, are all the major areas of syllabus content included?
Yes No Please delete irrelevant answer
3. If you have answered No, please explain why the major area of syllabus content is not included.
N/A

4. For each candidate’s portfolio for this syllabus, are all the assessment objectives included?
Yes No Please delete irrelevant answer

5. If you have answered No, please explain why the assessment objectives were not included.

6. Have you informed each candidate about the choice of evidence and considered their responses?
Yes No Please delete irrelevant answer
C Security and authenticity of work
You must be able to confirm, with a reasonable degree of confidence, that the work included in every
portfolio is authentic, which means that it is the candidate’s own unaided work. A ‘reasonable degree of
confidence’ does not mean absolute certainty. However, it does mean that you have taken reasonable
steps to ensure that the work is authentic.
7. Please describe the conditions in which each type of piece of work was completed.
For example, was the work completed entirely in the classroom, was one piece of work completed as
homework, was one piece of work completed online?
The pieces of evidence gathered is conducted through online assessments such as Google Forms and
exam.net. Moreover, all pieces of evidence are given as Unit Test 1 (Evidence 1), Unit Test 2 (Evidence
2) and Third Term Examination (Mock Exam) and was facilitated according to the required Cambridge
time frame through Google Meet.

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 8. How have you authenticated each type of piece of work?
Refer to guidance on authenticity in the Cambridge Handbook and on our website.
For example, have you conducted interviews with candidates, was the work done in a supervised way in
school? If the work was supervised, please give details.
All pieces of evidence were conducted through online assessments using Google Forms and Exam.net
where teachers practiced proper invigilation. In addition, candidates are given a tight time schedule in
taking and completing each test.
Moreover, parents of the candidates signed an authentication form declaring the student's adherence
to academic integrity.

D Managing your marking (standardisation)

In cases where more than one teacher has used the same mark scheme, you are required to standardise
your marking.
9. Was more than one teacher involved in awarding marks to the candidates for this syllabus?
Yes No Please delete irrelevant answer
10. If you have answered Yes, please describe the standardisation process that you used.
Include details of how you agreed the marks awarded, how you checked that you were all marking to the
same standard, how you ensured that all the subject teachers involved applied assessment criteria and
standards across the syllabus consistently.

11. How did you ensure that your judgements about each candidate’s level of performance were free
from bias?
It is important that the marking of work is objective; when marking, teachers should only take account of
the student’s knowledge, skills and abilities which are evident in the piece of work. Refer to our guidance
on avoiding bias.
The candidates’ levels of performance were free from bias as it was made sure that the pieces of
evidence were graded based on the available marking schemes for the component used in the
November and June 2020 series.

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Rationale Document 6
E Awarding grades to your students
Questions 12 and 13 are about how you awarded grades to your students. You don’t need to give details
of your workings for each candidate, but you do need to explain your approach.
12. Please explain how you determined the grades for each type of piece of work.
For example, you may have referred to published grade thresholds for a particular examination paper,
you may have used a percentage score, you may have used the published coursework thresholds for an
adapted piece of extended work, you may have considered the grades awarded to your students in
previous exam series.

Given that the June 2020 series does not have any published threshold and the November 2020
threshold cannot be used according to the guidelines as ‘this grade threshold was calculated on the
basis of the specific circumstances the exam tool place in and is not applicable for the June 2021
series’, the pieces of evidences were graded based on professional judgment and the average of
previous thresholds in the 2020 and 2021 series -- March 2020, November 2020 and March 2021
series respectively. Thus, we have the following thresholds:
GRADE THRESHOLDS FOR EACH PIECE OF EVIDENCE
Paper 1 Reading Component 12 (June 2020 series)
A* 58 A 50 B 42 C 34 D 28 E 21 F 14 G8

Paper 2 Directed Writing and Composition Component 22 (November 2020 series)

A* 62 A 55 B 48 C 42 D 35 E 29 F 22 G 15

All papers in the said thresholds used contain the same difficulty as the ones used for evidence
gathering. They all contain 80 marks in total and both papers involve similar skills as the ones used in
the three thresholds involved. Thus, the average of these thresholds is deemed appropriate to be used
as the teacher’s basis for professional judgment.

Note:
It is essential to note that Evidence 1 & 2 marks were combined to get the total marks of Paper 2
which is 80 marks. Paper 2 was divided into 2 parts: Unit Test 1 & 2. Section A Directed Writing was
the students’ Unit Test 1 while Section B Composition served as their Unit Test 2.

13. Please explain how you determined the overall grades for your candidates.
The two papers where the three evidences came from have 80 marks each and can be considered as
having the same value given that in the 2020 syllabus, both Paper 1 and Paper 2 take 50% of the total
grade. Given that, the total number of marks for each paper were added to determine the overall
grade.

In this case, the overall marks of all pieces of evidence is 160. The overall thresholds for the different
grades were set as follows:

OVERALL GRADE THRESHOLDS FOR EVIDENCE 1, 2 and 3

A* 120 A 105 B 90 C 76 D 63 E 50 F 36 G 23

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 Notes:
● For marking grades of A to G, the lowest possible mark for each piece of evidence at each
band was added to determine the thresholds.
● As stated in the guidelines, the A* score “is usually set by working out the number of marks
between the syllabus level Grade A threshold and the syllabus-level Grade B threshold, and
adding this to the A threshold.”
● In this case, the difference between A which is 105 and B which is 90 is 15. Thus, the sum of
105 (A mark) and 15 is 120, which becomes the grade for A*.
● As stated in the previous item, Evidence 1 & 2 marks were combined to get the total marks of
Paper 2 which is 80 marks. Paper 2 was divided into 2 parts: Unit Test 1 & 2. Section A Directed
Writing was the students’ Unit Test 1 while Section B Composition served as their Unit Test 2.
Thus, the letter grades for Evidence 1 & 2 represent one paper component ONLY.

Given the explanations both in this item and item 12, the following candidates were given the
following marks:

Candidate Candidate Evidence Evidence Evidence Evidence Evidence Evidence Overall Overall
Number Name 1 1 2 2 3 3 Grade Grade
(Raw Grade (Raw Grade (Raw Grade (Numerical
Score) Score) Score) Grade)

12 Budhrani, 39/40 A* 38/40 A* 77/80 A* 134/160 A*

Annika

4 Hernandez, 35/40 A* 32/40 A* 67/80 A* 154/160 A*

Joaquin
Ethan

F Access arrangements and special consideration

Questions 14 and 15 are about access arrangements. Refer to the Cambridge Handbook section 1.3 for
guidance about access arrangements.
14. Did any of your candidates require an access arrangement?
Yes No Please delete irrelevant answer

15. If you answered Yes, please give details of the access arrangements that were required, and how
these were delivered.

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 Questions 16 and 17 are about special consideration. Refer to the Cambridge Handbook section 5.5 for
guidance about special consideration.
16. Did any of your candidates require special consideration?
Yes No Please delete irrelevant answer

17. If you answered Yes, please give details.

Thank you for completing the Rationale Document.

You must complete a Rationale Document for each syllabus for which you are submitting entries and keep
them for your records. You only need to send us the Rationale Document for the syllabuses that we request.
Do not send the Rationale Document or candidate work to us if you have not been asked to do so.
I confirm that the information in this Rationale Document accurately represents how student-assessed
grades were determined.

Name

Position

Date

Rationale Document 9