Understand your marking rubric
Want to improve your grades? Start by understanding how your work will be marked. Every assessment task comes with a marking guide or rubric. These documents set out the assessable components of each task, and assign numerical grades to each part. This page explains how marking guides and rubrics work.
Every assessment comes with two pieces of information:
- instructions outlining what you need to do, and
- marking criteria
Marking criteria are usually provided in the form of a rubric or marking guide. These convey how you will be assessed.
For students
Marking criteria provide students with clear guidelines for the skills, knowledge or abilities they are being asked to demonstrate within a specific assessment task. Marks cannot be awarded or detracted for any other element or reason than those articulated within the criteria.
For lecturers
Marking criteria provide lecturers with guidelines for how to relate the work you have submitted to the marks they are awarding. In theory, this makes assessment less subjective and more objective, and consistent across students. The way marks are allocated also becomes transparent using marking criteria, because lecturers are awarding marks against elements that are specific and articulated.