MARK SCHEME – GCSE CHINESE (MANDARIN) – 8673/SH –
JUNE 2023
AQA
GCSE
CHINESE (MANDARIN)
8673/SH
Paper 2 Speaking Higher
Mark scheme including Guidance for Role-Plays
June 2023
2
, MARK SCHEME – GCSE CHINESE (MANDARIN) – 8673/SH –
JUNE 2023
Contents
Page
4 Part One Mark Scheme
6 Section 1: Role-play
9 Section 2: Discussion of photo card
11 Section 3: General conversation
15 Appendix 1: Subject content (Themes)
16 Appendix 2: Speaking Score Sheet
17 Appendix 3: Symbols for annotating Speaking Score Sheet
18 Appendix 4: Marking of photo card – guidance notes
26 Appendix 5: Role-plays – General Principles
27 Appendix 6: Photo cards – Guidance on paraphrasing
28 Part Two Mark Scheme
28 Section 1: Role-plays – specific June 2023 mark schemes
2
, MARK SCHEME – GCSE CHINESE (MANDARIN) – 8673/SH –
JUNE 2023
Speaking Tests – Higher tier
Part One Mark Scheme
Principles of marking
The Speaking Tests are marked in accordance with the assessment criteria provided later in this
document. No allowance can be made for poor teacher conduct of the tests. You can only assess
what you hear.
If a candidate requires a prompt or explanation of any kind, including the provision of an item of
obviously unknown vocabulary, this must be given clearly and audibly by the teacher-examiner
without stopping the recording.
Level of response marking instructions
Level of response mark schemes are used in the Photo card and General conversation tasks. The
criteria are broken down into levels, each of which has a descriptor. The descriptor for the level
shows the average performance for that level.
Step 1 Determine a level
Start at the lowest level of the mark scheme and use it as a ladder to see whether the student
performance meets the descriptor for that level. The descriptor for the level indicates the different
qualities that might be seen in the student’s performance for that level. If it meets the lowest level
then go to the next one and decide if it meets this level, and so on, until you have a match between
the level descriptor and the performance. With practice and familiarity, you will find that for better
performances you will be able to quickly skip through the lower levels of the mark scheme.
When assigning a level, you should look at the overall quality of the performance and not look to
pick holes where the student has not performed quite as well as the rest. If the performance
covers different aspects of different levels of the mark scheme, you should use a ‘best fit’ approach
for defining the level and then use the variability of the performance to help decide the mark within
the level, ie if the response is predominantly level 3 with a small amount of level 4 material it would
be placed in level 3 but be awarded a mark near the top of the level because of the level 4 content.
Step 2 Determine a mark
Once you have assigned a level, you need to decide on the mark. The exemplar materials used
during standardisation will help. You can compare the student’s performance with the examples
marked by the Lead Examiner to determine if it is the same standard, better or worse than the
examples. You can then use this information to allocate a mark for the performance.
You may well need to go back through the test as you apply the mark scheme to assure yourself
that the level and the mark are appropriate.
4
, MARK SCHEME – GCSE CHINESE (MANDARIN) – 8673/SH –
JUNE 2023
The test as a whole
Each candidate’s speaking test consists of three parts, completed in this order:
Part 1 Role-play – 2 minutes approximately (15 marks)
Part 2 Discussion of photo card – 3 minutes at Higher tier (15 marks)
Part 3 General conversation – 5–7 minutes at Higher tier (30 marks)
Total marks at Higher tier = 60
Nine role-plays and photo cards will be set at each tier in each series for French, German and
Spanish and six for small entry languages.
Marks will be allocated in the following way at Higher tier:
Communication Knowledge Range and Pronunciation Spontaneity Total
and use of accuracy of and and fluency
language language intonation
Role-play 10 5 15
Photo card 15 15
General
10 10 5 5 30
Conversation
Total 35 5 10 5 5 60
Marks for each candidate must be entered clearly in black pen on the Speaking Score Sheet (see
Appendix 2 on p16) and entered into QMS. All additions must be checked carefully to ensure they
are correct both on the Speaking Score Sheet and in QMS. Addition errors can result in
candidates receiving a wrong grade.
5
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