When hundreds of thousands of Malaysian students wait anxiously for their SPM results, or their peers across the causeway scan the O-Level boards, they are told that they are being evaluated purely on merit.
Educational syndicates proudly market these high-stakes gauntlets as “criterion-based” — an absolute measure of what a student knows, independent of anyone else.
But behind closed doors, a very different statistical reality plays out.
Contrary to what has been assumed to be criterion-based, Cambridge IGCSE and O-Level systems do not use fixed score thresholds. Instead of a rigid “90% equals an A*” rule, Cambridge adjusts grade boundaries after every exam series based on the difficulty of the specific test papers.
