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Assessment

What makes a rubric usable

A rubric is only as good as the person who has to apply it at the end of a long marking day. Some principles that help.

BlankSage team1 min read

An evaluation screen showing a rubric breakdown by sub-part next to a scanned answer

A rubric usually gets written once, carefully, and then applied hundreds of times, tired, under time pressure. The test of a good rubric is whether two people applying it to the same answer reach the same mark.

Make each line observable

'Shows good understanding' is a judgement. 'States the discriminant condition for equal roots' is something you can point to on the page. Prefer lines a marker can verify by looking.

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