Assessment Examples and Comment

This article discusses the assessment methods used in the International Baccalaureate program, specifically at Faria International School. It covers pre-assessment, formative assessment, and summative assessment, as well as the grading system and criteria. The article also includes comments on a student's performance in different subjects.

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Running head: ASSESSMENT EXAMPLES AND COMMENT
Assessment Examples and Comment
Name
Institution

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ASSESSMENT EXAMPLES AND COMMENT
International Baccalaureate was formerly known as International Baccalaureate
Organization. It has several educational institutions in more than 100 countries around the world
(Saxton and Hill, 2014). The students of IB are assessed and evaluated to ensure that they
achieve the set learning objectives. Faria International School is one of the institutions which
offer the educational program of IB.
Nugent and Karnes (2002) say that students in Faria International School are assessed
using pre-assessment, formative assessment as well as summative assessment. Pre-assessment is
done before the start of the unit in order to guide the teacher in the teaching and learning process.
Formative assessment is done in the progress of the unit where the teacher is given an
opportunity to understand the students with special needs, what the learners know and develop a
plan on the areas which need to be emphasized on in the teaching and learning process. The
summative assessment is done at the end of the semester where the general and overall
performance of a student is demonstrated. In this summative assessment, the IB examiners and
moderators are the ones who are responsible in assessing the students.
In Diploma Programme, assessment reports are given two times in a year, implying that
each year has two semesters. In each semester, a final report is issued independently from the
other semester. This means that the grades of one semester do not carry over to the next
semester. This is because many universities including Faria International School require
independent transcripts from each student for each semester. The grades are assigned on the
basis of the student’s closeness to the achievement of the set objectives and benchmarks (Saxton
and Hill, 2014). The subject teachers are responsible for providing anecdotal comments which
are concerned with the behavior of the student as well as progress in the specific subjects.

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ASSESSMENT EXAMPLES AND COMMENT
The final report combines both internal as well as external assessments where the internal
assessments are done by the subject teachers while the external assessments are done by the IB
moderators. The IB has set a standardized and logical assessment rubric which is used to assign
grades to students. The points of the marks range from 1 to 7 in each subject (Nugent and
Karnes, 2002). 1 is the lowest point while 7 is the highest point awarded in each subject. Each
semester has five subjects which need to be accomplished at the end. Additionally, the
assessment is done on the basis of three aspects which include Theory of Knowledge, Creativity,
Action and Service as well as Extended Essay. All these three aspects contribute in the final
grade which is awarded at the end of every semester.
Some scholarly sources argue that there are five subjects in each semester while others
argue that there are six subjects in each semester. However, most sources claim that the highest
possible total points in each semester are 42 with additional 3 points, which total to 45 points.
This is arrived at by multiplying the 6 subjects with the highest possible points which is 7,
resulting to 42 points. The Faria International School in the Diploma Programme has set a
minimum of 24 total points for a student to proceed to the next semester. This implies that a
student who scores less than the 24 points is not given the authority to proceed with the
education system. However, IB has certain criteria which look at single subject points. This
implies that a student may have more than the minimum 24 points but then may not be allowed
to progress due to the failure of a particular subject. The IB, therefore, encourages students to do
their best in all the subjects in order to realize a balanced performance in all the subjects.
Comments
Firstly, I comment that the system of Faria International School which is part of
International Baccalaureate is complicated in the way the students are assessed. It is in my own

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ASSESSMENT EXAMPLES AND COMMENT
opinion that formative assessment as well as summative assessments should be done by the IB
examiners and moderators in order to ensure a trustworthy grading and avoid minor biases which
may be committed by the subject teachers. The examiners and moderators should use the records
of the subject teachers to come up with the formative assessment and then combine it with the
summative assessment to come up with a final grade which is fair and trustworthy. In addition,
the use of the seven points in each subject caught my attention. The criteria or the representations
of the seven points is not clear. I would propose for the use of percentages where the highest
possible score would be 100%.
Dear parent,
Janet White has shown a great improvement in her overall performance. She is a committed and
hard working student who has been seen to be outstanding in her discipline by almost all her
teachers. However, she really needs to be given more assignments in order to keep her busy and
as well to make sure that her learning attitude and culture is maintained.
Language and Literature
6A
Janet has shown great acquisition of writing skills in her entire assignments. She has been
improving greatly in this subject as compared to the previous tests.
Mathematics
6A
It has been noted with a keen interest that Janet does well in spatial-related concepts. This has
made her performance in Mathematics quite good. Janet has a great potential of achieving higher
if she is motivated by the parents too.
Individuals and Societies
7A

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ASSESSMENT EXAMPLES AND COMMENT
In the class activities and practicals that have been done in this unit, Janet had been very hard
working. She is a keen listener and acquires the necessary steps required in the unit with a great
proficiency. She has been in the frontline of the best performers in this unit.
Sciences
6A
In the class work activities, Janet has been very cooperative and willing to enquire where she did
not understand. She has love for this subject and this has increased her curiosity, an aspect which
contributed greatly on her performance. She is an open-minded student who takes corrections
positively.
Language Acquisition
6A
In the entire unit, Janet has shown a lot of improvement right from the start of the unit. She has
been able to acquire and apply communication skills. You can be sure that her language now is
much different from the way she was at the start of the semester. Her writing and reading
accuracy and efficiency is quite high. However, she needs to keep on reading more books and
articles in order to boost the language acquisition.

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ASSESSMENT EXAMPLES AND COMMENT
References
Nugent, S. A., & Karnes, F. A. (2002). The advanced placement program and the International
Baccalaureate Programme: A history and update. Gifted Child Today, 25(1), 30-39.
Saxton, S. E., & Hill, I. (2014). The International Baccalaureate (IB) programme: An
international gateway to higher education and beyond. Higher Learning Research
Communications, 4(3), 42-52.