Exams Administration
Information and resources for exams officers to plan ahead and stay on track throughout the whole exams lifecycle, from entries to results day.
Review and priority review of marking
Find out how you can request a review or priority review of marking. This includes how to make a request, fees and deadlines.
What to expect
If you request a review or priority review of marking:
- it includes a clerical re-check
- you’ll receive a copy of the reviewed script as part of this service
- a second examiner will review the paper/recording again to identify genuine marking errors or unreasonable marking
- we’ll make sure all the marks are counted
- a grade can go down as well as up.
You can request these services for individual units or components.
Priority review of marking
This is a faster service for students whose place at a university, or other higher education institution, depends on the outcome.
It’s only available for:
- AS and A-level (including new AS specifications)
- AQA Certificate Level 3
- AQA Certificate Level 3 Applied General qualifications.
Fees
In the table below, you'll find the fees for each review of marking service.
What we charge will depend on the type of qualification and the outcome of the review.
Linear qualifications
When you submit components for review, please be aware that the timing of the requests will affect the fee charged.
If the subject grade changes, we do not charge for any components that:
- are requested together (at the same time)
- are requested separately but the linked components are still ‘In progress’ on Centre Services.
If you submit a component after a review of a linked component has been completed, you will be charged separately for each component. The fee for each component will depend on whether it does or does not change the overall subject grade.
Here are some examples to help explain the process:
Modular qualifications
If the overall award grade changes, we do not charge for the review or any of the units.
If the overall award grade does not change – or the student does not combine the marks or other units they have sat in a previous exam series (aggregate):
- we do not charge if a unit grade changes as a result of a review
- if two units are reviewed, and only one unit grade changes, we will charge for the unit where the grade did not change.
How to make a request
You can only request a review of marking once for a paper.
To make a request, you'll need to:
- Fill in the student written consent form from JCQ’s post-results services page and keep it for six months after the outcome of the enquiry or subsequent appeal.
- Log in to Centre Services and select ‘Post-exams’ and ‘Post-results services’.
- Select ‘Review of marking’ either ‘Request by candidate’ or ‘Request by component’ and then select the service ‘Non priority (Plus reviewed script)’ or ‘Priority (Plus reviewed script)’.
- You’ll receive a copy of the reviewed script as part of the review or priority review of marking service.
Reviews for exams with multiple components
Previously, where question papers are split into multiple components with individual answer booklets you had to select each component to be included in a post-results review. You no longer need to do this and only have to select one of the components. This will then automatically include all components in the request.
Deadlines
Priority reviews of marking are not available in the November, January or March exam series.
How long it takes
- up to 20 calendar days for a review of marking
- up to 15 calendar days for a priority review of marking.
What happens next
We’ll email your school/college’s exams officer when your review outcome is available on Centre Services.
To comply with the new Ofqual requirements, if there has been a mark change on one or more of the questions on a reviewed paper, the reasons for review of marking decisions can be found on the copy of reviewed script. These can be accessed on the ‘View or cancel requests’ screen on Centre Services.