Influential Geograpy teacher Dereck Jepson has made his annual choice of marking pen for the 2012 A Level examination season.
Revealing the much anticipated choice on his blog 'Geography Makes the World Go Round!'Mr Jepson is once more set to lead the way in public exam assessment technique.
For multi-choice papers Mr Jepson has opted for the Pilot G-2 XS. 'A controversial choice, I know' he writes on his popular blog. 'At around 3 inches the G-2 XS is generally considered to be too short for A Level correction yet I am urging all my fellow markers to give it a go!
'The red is solid and vivid' Mr Jepson continues 'and the dry-out is impressive. There'll certainly be none of the smudge effect that so blighted the 2007 season when I rashly recommended the Staedtler Lumocolor. What a frigging disaster that turned out to be - the "Renault Laguna of correction pens" as my senior examiner pointed out to me during re-training'.
For longer essay type papers Mr Jepson is once again suggesting an untried addition to the examiner's arsenal - the Uni-ball Signo Gelstick 0.7. 'The grippage of the Signo is impressive and the opaque barrel reveals as much as you need to know about ink level. The cap fits nicely on the blunt end of the pen yet the Signo retains balance without it for those markers prone to wrist strain'.
Mr Jepson is clearly impressed with the Signo and has been trialling it on his lower sixth marking since early February. 'It really does the business in extreme conditions' says Mr Jepson. 'That little bastard in 1f who thought his annotation of the glacier diagram looked better with a big cock and balls on it wasn't laughing after the Signo had given him double detention. No, he bloody well wasn't!
In a related story yesterday the major exam boards all announced that future exam sessions will be either outsourced for marking to centres in Karachi. Or a computer will give them all an A* anyway.
