External Evaluation of the European Baccalaureate (Annexes)

in the legend of the map (one page, divided into 3 parts, giving the structure of the
study), and a mastery of that specific tool in geography that is a map.
• In the scripts marked above the average the defaults are: a good legend, with a real
problematic, but an inability to draw the map correctly; a legend more descriptive than
problematic (the examiner asks: “what does that mean?”); rather big gaps in
knowledge.
• In the scripts under 10/20, the question is dealt with very superficially (both map and
legend), although information provided is not incorrect. The examiner underlines
problems of method.
• In the worst scripts, the marks are very bad, in a “série” where the weighting factor of
History and Geography is very high (x5) there is nothing to say, the question is not
dealt with : the point is that I cannot know whether at the end the candidate has passed
or not.
Marking
As to the marking scheme, the enforcement of which I can check in these scripts, the
impression is that:
• The judgment of the examiner does not seem irrelevant : the differences between the
four sets of scripts are obvious, although the reasons for the scripts to get under 10/20,
for instance, are of course various;
• The fact that we have just an overall mark H+G is not satisfactory, as we can wonder
for instance if the examiner is not influenced by his/her judgment about the historical
part of the script when he/she begins the geographical one. A separate marking, at
least the necessity to clearly identify each subject should be introduced.
• There is just one examiner: the scripts are not well marked, but seem very seriously
evaluated, as the examiner writes down a lot of comments on the paper itself.
• There is no eliminatory marking: one can wonder if it is acceptable to give the exam to
a candidate who obviously ignores everything in geography and does not hesitate to
put Boston in Eastern Siberia…But we can argue that in the EB such a candidate
would not have chosen Geography (that is compulsory at French Bac).
3.2 3.2. The EB scripts
The impression is that of long scripts, long texts, showing the ability of students to make a
protracted effort in writing.
The question paper requested the production of some pie charts or bar charts: when they
have not been produced, and replaced by a text there is no obvious sanction. The calculator
was permitted, but the students seem not to have used it to produce the very rough graphics
in evidence.
Obviously the abundance of questions is a help for students who are not very skilled but who
can try to answer all the questions, and get some points from this accumulation: the absence
of very bad marks is the perhaps a consequence of this structural feature of the assessment.
These students are not required to write up autonomously an essay: in the French exam, they
will be more penalized.
If a very precise number of points are attributed to each sub-question, the marking inside
each sub-question is opaque. May be here a clear marking would be more necessary: if the
scripts lacks this or that information, what is the consequence in terms of marking?
The double marking of the scripts is more a factor of opacity than other: whereas the scripts
at French Bac are commented in details by the examiner, at EB the absence of any mention
may open the door to some subjective attitude that the double marking should have
eliminated.
The gaps between the two examiners are often above 1 point/10, but the scale used is very
short:
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