Page 83 - BACC Report

Draft Report on European Baccalaureate 2020

Goal:

The Board of Governors cancelled the organisation of the 2020 European
Baccalaureate examinations and decided to award the European Baccalaureate
Diplomas using only A1, A2 and B1 marks (preliminary marks). The distribution of
results might differ significantly from previous years’ final marks distributions. The
European Baccalaureate Regulations foresee the possibility of applying moderation,
the prerogative of the Chairman and Vice-Chairmen of the European Baccalaureate.
In order to safeguard the credibility of the European Baccalaureate Diploma, it might
be necessary to:

- Demonstrate that the final marks distribution, calculated using only A1, A2 and B1
in the previous years, differed significantly from the actual final marks. Also to
compare this year’s preliminary marks distribution with previous years’ final marks
distributions.
- Create a method/algorithm to moderate the 2020 final marks. The method should
not negatively affect this year's students, compared with those of earlier years.

Preliminary investigations

The mean preliminary and final marks of the years 2015 to 2019 are shown in the chart
below, as well as that of the final marks for 2020 calculated using A1, A2 and B1 marks
only (A2 marks were not yet known for 2020 so the A1 marks were replicated as a
prediction for the A2 marks; for the sake of simplicity, I will refer to these as “preliminary
marks”).

PRELIMINARY VS FINAL AVERAGES

Preliminary averages Final averages

80,4 80,44 80,51
79,98 79,93
79,35
78,84
78,34 78,36
78,01 78,12

2015 2106 2017 2018 2019 2020 pred

The overall averages fell by between 1.34 and 2.04 marks between the preliminary
and the final marks, so moderation should decrease the mean of 2020 preliminary
marks from 80.51 to somewhere between 78.5 and 79.2, with the maximum and
minimum decrease recorded in the past years used as a reference range. The fact
that the average of the final marks ranged between 78.02 and 78.84 in the past five
years should also be taken into consideration.

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