International Baccalaureate body says grade boundaries will not be increased this year
- Despite incidents of time zone cheating, IB says it is ‘confident’ no student was disadvantaged and it will not recalibrate test scores
The body that runs the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma programme has said scores will remain consistent with previous years and that grade boundaries will not be increased even though time zone cheating had been discovered earlier this year.
In an email sent out this week by IB’s Director of Assessment, Matt Glanville, the International Baccalaureate Organization said it was “confident” no students had been disadvantaged due to the actions of those who had cheated, and acknowledged that significant stress had been caused by online speculation surrounding time zone cheating.
“We want to assure you that despite these challenges, the meaning of grades remains consistent with previous years and grade boundaries have not been inflated. We are confident that no individual student has been disadvantaged by these circumstances,” Glanville said.
More than 190,000 IB candidates who sat the exam in May around the world will receive their results this Saturday.
Time zone cheating occurs when students who have completed their exam papers share what they can recall from memory on social media before those in later time zones take the test.
In the exams sat between April 24 and May 17 this year, some students in Europe claimed they had read leaked questions and answers provided on a Telegram channel ahead of their tests. Others in Asia said the leak happened after they had sat the tests.