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Definition of Percentile and A*

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Okay , I am a bit confused about the exact meaning of percentiles and A* in the CIE syllabus. Yes I know its funny seeing I am already appearing for my A2 , but I recently got confused.

So , for me to get an A* in any subject what do I have to do?
Is it ,
A ) Get 90% percentile above in As and A2 combined.
or
B ) Get 90% in A2 and have a minimum A in As exams.
or
Is there another way for it?


And percentiles,

Is this definition correct?

Percentile is an indicator of where your position is in the grade boundaries. If the boundary for A in a subject is 65 out of 75, another papers boundary is 40 out of 50, that means out of 125 aggregate , the boundary for A is 105. If a student gets 105 out of 125 in actual marks, then that is 80 percentile. If a student get 104 , that is 79 percentile. If a students gets around 115 , thats almost 90 percentile. And so on.
 
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And please when you are posting your answers , please provide proper source such as links from CIE themselves which proves your answer.
 
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THIS EXCERPT WAS PUBLISHED IN 2010!



CIE is not disclosing its actual information so there are a number of misunderstandings regarding the new grade policy. Following information has been officially obtained from CIE under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.


From the June 2010 examination, Grade A* will be awarded at A Level to candidates who obtain the required total mark across all the A Level papers in that subject (including the AS Level papers).

The threshold for Grade A* will be set as many marks above the Grade A threshold as the Grade B threshold is below it.

For example, in June 2009 a candidate taking A Level Economics via the 'linear' route needed a total of 142 marks out of 200 to obtain a Grade A. The requirement for a Grade B was 128 marks. If we had issued Grade A* in that session, the threshold would have been set at 156 out of 200. (If statistical evidence suggested we should reduce the threshold from this level we would do so, but we would not raise it.)

Whatever raw mark becomes the A* threshold - 156 in this example - will be mapped onto a percentage uniform mark of 90%, just as 142 marks would be mapped onto 80% and 128 marks onto 70%.

Obviously the thresholds that we use will not be determined until July 2010.

Yours sincerely
Customer Services Advisor
University of Cambridge International Examinations
 
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