The IB has a process called Enquiry Upon Results, or EUR for short. If you’re not sure about this process, this post will give you some key details. Just remember that everything should go through your IB Co-ordinator.
Here are the categories for EURs:
Category 1 re-mark:
This is the re-marking of externally assessed material for an individual candidate. The cost is $123USD per candidate per subject (although if a grade is changed as a result, then the fee is returned).
If you have a student who is only a couple marks short of a higher grade boundary (e.g. they need 2 more marks for a 7), then this might be a good option for parents and students to consider. Do be careful, though, as there is also the potential of marks going down, so it is only advisable where the student is within a few marks of the higher grade boundary.
You can also have EEs and TOK essays re-marked under this category.
Category 1 report
This is a report on a category 1 re-mark for an individual candidate. You might consider ordering one of these if you went for a Cat 1 re-mark and the grade didn’t change, and you would like to know the reasons.
If anyone has had one of these, I would be interested to hear from you in the comments about how useful the feedback was because it does cost $211 per candidate, per subject.
Note: you need to have a Cat 1 re-mark before you can order the Cat 1 report.
Category 2A
This is the return of externally assessed material by component for all candidates. So, for example, your students have not done very well on Paper 3 (don’t worry, this is common!) and you want to see the examined papers, you could order a Cat 2A for Paper 3 and you will get the digital PDFs of your students answers for that Paper.
Our school has the policy that this comes out of department funds, and it can be a good use of money ($55USD). In my first couple of years teaching IB Psych’ I ordered these to read examiner comments, get some exemplars to use for teaching (with student permission) and to also understand the marking process.
Category 2B
This is the return of externally assessed material by subject/level for an individual candidate. So you would get all their external exam papers returned (i.e. Paper 1 & 2 for SL and Papers 1,2 & 3 for HL). This could be a good option to consider before ordering a remarking (Cat 1).
Our school has a good policy of automatically requesting a Cat 2B for any student within 1 or 2 points of the next higher grade. We then review their scripts and if we think they have a good chance of their grade changing after re-marking, we make recommendations to the parents (as it will be them who have to pay if there is no grade change).
I sometimes feel like the examining process looks a bit like this and seeing it from “behind the scenes” as an examiner didn’t really help alleviate that fear much, either. This is why I’d recommend getting EURs if you feel your students’ scores were a lot lower than predicted. Looking at component scores can also help decide with category of EUR to go for.
Category 3 re-moderation
This is the re-moderation of marks for internal assessment by subject/level (this is for the whole group of IAs that were moderated) ($296USD). You might order one of these if your IAs were heavily moderated down and you think this is undeserved.
Deadlines
- September 15th (May exams) or March 15th (Nov exams)
- If ordering a Cat 1 report, this has to come within one month of the Cat 1 re-mark.
Advice?
If you’ve had experience with EURs and you have some good advice or tips to share, please let us know in the comments. I’ll be ordering a couple myself this year and will be sure to pass on any advice I glean from the process.
You can read more on the IB’s official “Assessment FAQs” page HERE.
