I have heard that examiner is a person who is a subject specialist of that paper, which is being marked by them. Like "Essay" and "Precis" are checked by English teacher, so are other subjects by their respective teachers. But the thing that has been bouncing in my head for a while is, that how come an examiner of essay paper figures out the quality of that essay, being just a teacher of English. Let me put it this way, that the essay paper is an amalgamation of Knowledge, reasoning skills, writing skills and etc., on one side, candidate who is giving exam is at a different intellectual level who seems to have acquired enormous knowledge and hence, a totally different entity, whereas on another side, examiner is just an english teacher whose main ability/skill is to analyse an essay with the view to its grammar, style, coherence etc etc. So how come an examiner examines the knowledge contained in the essay, who themselves have not gone through the path which a candidate has? Knowledge comes to a candidate by extensive reading, one has to read so much to make opinions, so how can an examiner examines one's ability(knowledge) which they themselves lack of? I'm of the opinion that essay paper must be checked by any good CSP officer because a CSP can better figure out the efforts of candidate which were put into it. I hope you understand what I am trying to ask. I had to say more but my bad writing skills came in my way, otherwise I would have asked you people properly. So what you members say?

Human beings are inclined to listen attentively to what they already know and believe to be right in their own eyes. Therefore if you write an essay that the examiner disagrees with - even if it is very well presented and argued - you are likely to get penalized (inadvertently).

That does not mean that the examiner is prone to bias and/or is just not capable of marking a decent essay; it is simply what it is, i.e, how human beings are wired.

I hope you find solace in what Bill Gates has to say about situations like these:

"Life is not fair; get used to it"

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D:

Well, my teacher said that though essay paper is checked by an English teacher but such teachers are mostly retired as Professors or Principals and they have spent their entire lives reading books, newspapers, writing, etc.

So you are wrong here in saying that they don't possess knowledge as much as candidates have.

Secondly, they had come across every kind of students in their life so it is very less likely that they become prey of biasness.

In short, essay papers are mainly checked for the clarity, coherence, language, arguments, etc. the main ingredients an essay should comprise of.

And most importantly, if you have formed your essay on the principles on which it should be based upon then even you go against the spirit of the essay and justify your stance with logical arguments then there is no chance of failing and on the contrary, if you fail to prove your points then …

Yours sincerely

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Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud - Maya Angelou