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Negative Marking: is it fair?
By Sadia Naeem
21 Nov 2010
Any student's immediate answer would probably be no. I've known for a while now that Manchester it seems (please correct me if I'm wrong) is the only school of pharmacy to employ negative marking in multiple-choice exams. In any case, I know or have met students from at least six other schools of pharmacy who are surprised that we have to endure negative marking in our exams.
Negative marking is a method used to distinguish between those who don't know the subject well, those who know the subject well and those who really know the subject well. It's a bad thing to us students, especially when one little snippet of knowledge, such as the detail that Linezolid is an antibiotic that in fact binds to the 50s subunit of the bacterial ribosome and not the 30s, can be the difference between achieving a first class grade or a 2.1. This puts off students from making educated guesses as well as blind guesses.
A quarter of a mark, sometimes even a third, is lost by incorrectly answering a question. But the fact is that in reality and in practice, pharmacists need to know things inside out in order to ensure that a patient is recommended a safe product for their heartburn or that a doctor's error on a prescription doesn't go unnoticed.
Of course I'd like to be rid of it completely, but I know that's not likely to happen. The question on my mind is... why just us? Why isn't this strategy employed in all schools of pharmacy, because the students there are just as likely to come across such situations when in practice? Everyone wants to aim high; so how fair is it that of two equally competent students at different universities, one should achieve a higher mark for a module, partly due to the fact that they could "guess" answers to questions that they weren't completely sure of? I'm biased towards scrapping negative marking but if I were being reasonable, my answer would be to not stop it at Manchester. Over time, the GPhC ought to implement it into the other schools of pharmacy.
Negative marking
Hi Sadia
I know exactly how you feel, I also study at Manchester and when the question was raised in a lecture as to why we do have negative marking, the lecturer simply said:
" If we were to give a Monkey a pen and the exam paper containing 100 questions, what is the probability of the Monkey getting answers correct?"
The negative marking is supposed to filter out the "guess" factor
Negative marking
I study at Queen's University in Belfast and we have negative marking as well. I didn't even realise it wasn't the same in every other school of pharmacy! For every MCQ statement we get wrong we lose a full mark (not just a 1/3)!
Negative marking does prevent guess-work but if it is to be enforced, it should be enforced across all schools of pharmacy to be fair.
Negative marking
Losing one whole mark is alot! I thought we were worst off. I agree with both of you that it ensures minimal blind guessing but it's unfair that it's at some schools of pharmacy and not others...because if it's the regulatory body that determines the course requirements, etc then how can they decide that some students abide by it and some don't? I'm not even sure whether it's actually the regulatory body anyway or just the individual universities that decide this specific thing.
Hopefully, the body will realise soon though and do something about it!
Negative Marking
Hi Sadia
We had negative marking at Sunderland University too, although not in all of our exams. I agree with you that it's not fair that people could guess the answer in some universities and achieve a higher classification degree than someone at a different univeristy who couldn't guess the answer.
I get my head round it by thinking that, in the future, when you're registered as a pharmacist and a medic on the ward asks you which part of the ribosome Linezolid binds to, you won't need to start your answer with 'Can I get back to you on that?'
I disagree that the GPhC should get involved with marking at university level however, after all ultimately this year, they'll prepare and grade the pre-registration exam which isn't negatively marked. The exam is however, developed in a way to force students to know the material to a very high standard (e.g. always making sure 2/5 choices are very similar). This prevents students 'guessing' the answer without penalising them for getting the question wrong.
We can't just guess!
Can someone explain this, please
Can someone explain how this Bath formula works, please. Surely, if you know you are going to be marked down even if you don't guess at all, there must be a point at which you are better off taking a punt on a few guesses in the hope of getting them right.
It would have to be a very sophisticated formula indeed to be fair to everyone.
Michael
Negative marking
I agree with Michael, I'm not sure I'd like the Bath system at Manchester any more than the current one!
I'm not saying that negative marking should be gotten rid of completely because it's obvious that as the experts on drugs, we need to know the ins and outs of everything. It's just unfortunate that it is both easier (in terms of exam grades) and less scrupulous for those at other schools that don't have exams with negative marking and I can't see any other way of equalising the playing field other than for the same method to be used in every school of pharmacy.
Negative Marking...what are the chances?
Hi Sadia,
Just thought I'd say that at Brighton University we also have negative marking although not in every module.
I also completely agree with your last comment Sadia. There should be a standard put for every school of pharmacy. Unfortunately I suspect that by the time the GPhC has carried this process out, I and many of the others that have commented on your blog will have already graduated!
Hi Noushin, Thanks for
Hi Noushin,
Thanks for your comment! You're right, by the time change takes place, if it does, it won't benefit us; but I'm wondering if it will be in many years into the future, not just a few, that the changes will be brought about. From talking to lecturers and students, it doesn't seem that many others are that bothered really :/