Cross out,rub out,oops it's still correct

A must read piece in this week's edition of the Spectator by Liz Brocklehurst.

Liz,a former marker of the SAT's paper recounts some tales from the past which will only add weight to the pressure on Ed Balls

Liz was

a Key Stage 2 Science marker, sworn to Masonic-like secrecy about this mysterious testing process. In my innocence I had expected it to be a straightforward procedure, but I hadn’t allowed for the serial incompetence, the human error, the vagaries of postal deliveries, and most important: the political pressure.

And she describes some of the practices,including

if the child wrote the correct answer, but then, on second thoughts, decided it was wrong and crossed it out, the crossing-out still gained the mark.

and it gets better

Correct spelling was completely irrelevant — to the point of absurdity. I remember one question required the one-word answer ‘air’. But markers were instructed that even words such as ‘her’ must be accepted as worthy of the mark. ‘Well,’ argued one senior examiner, ‘the child might speak with a Liverpudlian accent.’

The worrying thing is that these practices have been going on for 10 years,this isn't something that has just occurred under EAT.