BTEC Nationals Applied Law (2017)

BTEC Nationals in Business: assessment support
This page will try and help you understand the assessment of our Level 3 (RQF) BTEC Nationals in Business.
There is also a sister page to support you in the delivery of this qualification.
Internally assessed units
An assignment is set after the content of specific learning aims has been delivered. The assignment is a distinct activity completed independently by learners, and is separate from the teaching and learning for that learning aim or aims.
An assignment is issued to learners as an assignment brief with a defined start date, a completion date and clear requirements for the evidence that they need to provide. A valid assignment will enable a clear and formal assessment outcome based on the assessment criteria.
The specification for each unit includes the assessment criteria and guidance for assessors in the section headed 'Essential information for assessment decisions'.
Assessment guidance
The guidance below is largely taken from Senior Standards Verifier (SSV) Reports.
Externally assessed units
There are four externally assessed units and they are either of 90 or 120 GLH.
Each assessment is taken under specified conditions, then marked by Pearson and a grade awarded. Learners are permitted to resit external assessments twice during their programme. Learners may resit an external assessment to obtain a higher grade of near pass or above. If a learner has more than one attempt, then the best result will be used for qualification grading.
These two videos provide a useful introduction to BTEC external assessment and how best to prepare learners for them.
Examiners' reports
After each exam series, the Lead Examiner for each unit writes a report to provide feedback to teachers. Examiners' reports are the communication channel between senior examiners and teachers and contain an explanation of how the senior examiners have interpreted the mark schemes as well as examples of both good and poor candidate responses.
You can download the question papers, mark schemes and examiners' reports for each past exam series and taken together, these will give you the best insight into what is required in each unit.
Grade boundaries
All of the grade boundaries for the BTEC externally assessed units are given in ‘raw’ marks. A raw mark is the actual mark awarded by our examiners for an assessment. Raw mark scores can be downloaded by Exams Officers from Edexcel Online.
A grade boundary is the minimum mark at which a grade can be achieved. For example, if the grade boundary for a Distinction is 29, then 29 is the minimum mark atwhich a Distinction can be achieved. A mark of 28 would therefore be a Merit.
Unit results for BTEC National qualifications are reported on a 5 point grade scale: Distinction (D), Merit (M), Pass (P), Near Pass (N) and Unclassified (U).
Raw marks from the external units are converted into points based on performance in the assessment. Points are awarded on a sliding scale between the grade boundaries based on the number of raw marks achieved by each learner.
Grade statistics
The grade statistics show the number of learners who completed each qualification each year, and the proportion achieving each grade.
Colin Leith
Business
