Why ATPL theory results changed?

[NEDude]

Hello all, just got a notice that one of my ATPL theory results has been changed, nearly a month after I took the exam. Thankfully the change was a good one for me, my score went up. But what would cause them to review the exam and change the score several weeks after the fact?

[Alex Whittingham]

Someone complaining about a question.

[sapperkenno]

Which exam..?

[2close]

I think you'll find the position is that, at least three people have to independently challenge a question before the authority will review it (maybe Alex can verify this).

If the review process determines that the appeal is justified as the question is inappropriate the question is canned and all persons sitting that exam receive the mark(s) for the question.

There is always the risk that the reviewers may find that an incorrect answer had been inadvertently allocated to the question, e.g. the correct answer is 'X' but 'Y' has been incorrectly allocated as correct within the computer system. Anyone who selected 'Y' would lose the marks when 'X' was reallocated as the correct answer.

[NEDude]

The exam was Radio Navigation.

[Martin_123]

I think you'll find the position is that, at least three people have to independently challenge a question before the authority will review it (maybe Alex can verify this).

If the review process determines that the appeal is justified as the question is inappropriate the question is canned and all persons sitting that exam receive the mark(s) for the question.

There is always the risk that the reviewers may find that an incorrect answer had been inadvertently allocated to the question, e.g. the correct answer is 'X' but 'Y' has been incorrectly allocated as correct within the computer system. Anyone who selected 'Y' would lose the marks when 'X' was reallocated as the correct answer.
are you sure they are actually taking down marks? I can't imagine them sending out good scores and then invalidating them, that can cause quite a bit of an issue, especially if the difference is between pass and fail

[2close]

My apologies, Martin_123; I was being a tad cynical. ;)

In reality, if a question was found to have been allocated an incorrect answer, the question would be canned (on this occasion) and everyone would receive the marks for the question (as I outlined earlier in the post).

However, I suspect that you may be new to to the peculiarities of our national aviation authority and nothing surprises me any longer.

I have heard of people being marked down, when requesting a manual re-mark, however, seeing as they had failed in the first place it was of no real consequence.

Again, my apologies for my cynicism! :uhoh:

[Alex Whittingham]

We have just had 27 candidates have their marks increased in VFR Comms, 3 of them moved from fail to pass. This is not uncommon, although this is a biggy, and it shows that the UK appeal process is at least working. It does reinforce again our comments on the state of the original questions produced by EASA, questions that were allegedly prepared by Subject Matter Experts paying close attention to the syllabus requirements and already, allegedly, subject to four separate validation processes by other SMEs before they were released to the exams. In this case it's well done the UK CAA, poor job (again) EASA.