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How to make a marking scheme for your own tests

Last updated: 23 October 2026

Boards publish marking schemes for board papers. For your unit tests, half-yearlies and class tests, you write your own. A good one makes marking faster and fairer, and it means two teachers would give the same answer the same marks.

How to prepare a marking scheme, in seven steps

1. Answer the question yourself, in full. Write the answer you would expect from a strong student, in the words you taught.
2. Split it into key points. A key point is one distinct thing a full-mark answer must contain: a fact, a step, a reason, a formula or a unit. If two points always appear together, treat them as one.
3. Share the marks across the points. The points must add up to the question’s marks, and half marks are fine. Give more to the point that shows understanding than to a point that is only recall.
4. Write down what else you will accept. Other correct wording, a different valid method, another example, an equivalent unit.
5. Decide the small penalties. For example, a missing unit costs half a mark, once per question. Writing the rule down keeps you consistent.
6. For MCQs, record the correct option. If you can defend two options, fix the question, not the scheme.
7. Test the scheme on three real scripts. If you keep making exceptions, the scheme is missing a key point or an alternative.

A worked example

Key points
  1. Exothermic reactions release heat to the surroundings;
     endothermic reactions absorb heat from them.            (1)
  2. A second, different difference, for example the
     surroundings get warmer vs. cooler, or the products
     have less vs. more energy than the reactants.           (1)
  3. One correct example of each: exothermic (burning a
     fuel, respiration) and endothermic (photosynthesis,
     dissolving ammonium chloride).                     (1/2 + 1/2)

Also accept: any correct example pair.
Do not credit: the same difference worded twice.

Key points
  1. Moves 5 across or subtracts 5 from both sides: 3x = 15.   (1)
  2. Divides to get x = 5.                                     (1)

Also accept: any valid method that reaches x = 5.
Small penalty: none. A correct answer with a valid method
earns full marks even if the steps are written differently.

A template you can copy

Q__ (__ marks)
Key points
  1. ................................  (__)
  2. ................................  (__)
  3. ................................  (__)
Also accept: ................................
Do not credit: ................................
Small penalties: ................................

Common mistakes

• Too many key points. More than five or so per question is hard to apply to a real script. Ank keeps at most five for the same reason.
• Points that overlap. If one sentence in a student’s answer could earn two points, the points need rewriting.
• A model paragraph instead of points. A paragraph tells you what a perfect answer looks like, not where each mark goes.
• No alternatives. A scheme that only accepts your wording marks down correct answers.
• Marks that do not add up. Check that every question’s points sum to its marks, and the questions to the paper total.
• Writing it after you start marking. A scheme written from the first few scripts bends toward whoever you read first.

For a board paper, use the marking scheme your board publishes on its own website. This guide is for papers you set yourself.

Letting Ank draft it

In Ank, you confirm the question paper and Ank drafts a marking scheme for it: a model answer and up to five key points for each question. You review and edit it before any script is graded, and every student is then marked against that one scheme. Ank is not a substitute for the thinking above, because the scheme you approve is the standard it marks to. It does save you the typing. More in the guide to the AI answer sheet checker.