GCSE Mathematics
Error Carried Forward Marks Explained
It is the "ft" in a mark scheme: your later working is marked against your own wrong earlier answer. One slip costs one mark, not the question — but only where allowed.
مختصر جواب
What does error carried forward mean?
It means your later working is marked against your own earlier wrong answer rather than the correct one. In mark schemes it appears as "ft", short for follow through.
مختصر جواب
Error carried forward is what teachers call a follow-through mark. When you get an early step wrong and then use that wrong value correctly, the examiner marks the rest of your work against your value instead of the right one. Mark schemes flag it with "ft", and it applies only where the scheme says so.
جواب کس بات پر بدلتا ہے
- It applies only where the mark scheme prints ft against that specific mark — it is not a general principle you can rely on everywhere.
- A follow-through involving one stage of calculation can be awarded without working; one involving more than one stage requires the working to be visible.
- Marks marked dep depend on an earlier mark actually having been earned, so a follow-through cannot rescue them.
- If a correct answer is clearly produced by incorrect working, no marks are awarded at all, follow-through or otherwise.
The two letters that do all the work
Every Edexcel mathematics mark scheme carries the same glossary line: ft, follow through, when appropriate as per the mark scheme. Those last five words are the ones students skip. Follow-through is not a right the candidate holds; it is a permission the mark scheme grants, mark by mark.
Where it is granted, the effect is exactly what the name suggests. The examiner takes your incorrect intermediate value, checks whether everything after it is correct given that value, and awards the marks for the parts you did correctly. One arithmetic slip in the first line costs one mark rather than the question.
Six marks, one wrong number
Question 5 of Edexcel Paper 2H, Summer 2024, is a three-part graph question worth six marks. Part (a) asks for three values to complete a table, worth two marks: B2 for all three correct, B1 for one or two correct. Part (b) asks for the graph, worth two. Part (c) asks for the solutions where the curve meets y = 4, worth two.
Now put one wrong value in the table. Part (a) drops to B1. Part (b) does not collapse, because the mark scheme offers B1 follow through for plotting at least five of the points from their own table correctly. Part (c) does not collapse either: the accuracy mark is available for answers read from their own graph.
The student scores four out of six instead of two. The wrong value cost one mark in (a) and one in (b), and cost nothing at all in (c). Without follow-through, a single slip in a table would have taken every mark that depended on it — which on this question is all six.
Where it stops
Follow-through has three limits that are written into the general marking guidance, and none of them is negotiable. First, single-stage follow-through can be awarded without working because the examiner can check the arithmetic, but follow-through that involves more than one stage of calculation can only be awarded on sight of the relevant working — even where there is obviously only one way to reach the number.
Second, marks tagged dep are dependent on a previous mark having been earned, and no amount of correct subsequent work substitutes for the mark it depends on. In the question above, the follow-through mark in part (b) is itself dependent on scoring B1 in part (a): a student who got all three table values wrong loses the follow-through as well.
Third, a correct final answer obtained from incorrect working scores zero. Follow-through credits consistent reasoning from a wrong start; it does not credit a right answer that the working cannot have produced.
What this should change about how you sit the paper
The single most expensive habit in a maths exam is stopping. A student who realises at line three that their answer looks wrong, crosses everything out and moves on has thrown away every follow-through mark in the rest of the question. Carrying on with a number you suspect is wrong is not stubbornness — it is the only way to reach the marks that are still available.
The second habit worth building is writing the intermediate value down and labelling it. Follow-through beyond one stage requires the working to be visible, so a student who computes an area on a calculator and uses it three times without ever writing it has made their own follow-through unmarkable.
We drill this in our GCSE and IGCSE lessons by asking students to finish a question after being told the first answer is wrong. It feels pointless for about a fortnight, and then it starts showing up as three or four extra marks on every mock.
- Marks retained on a six-mark graph question after one wrong value in the opening table
- 4 of 6Marks retained on a six-mark graph question after one wrong value in the opening table[1]
عام سوالات
Is error carried forward the same as follow through?
In practice, yes. Teachers and students say error carried forward, or ECF; mark schemes say follow through and abbreviate it ft. They describe the same act of marking later work against the candidate's own earlier value. If you are searching a mark scheme for it, search for ft.
Does follow-through apply automatically to every question?
No, and this is the most common misunderstanding. It applies where the mark scheme prints ft against a particular mark. Marks without it are marked against the correct value, so a wrong start genuinely can cost the whole question — which is why checking an early answer is worth more time than checking a late one.
Will I still lose a mark if follow-through applies?
Yes. Follow-through limits the damage, it does not erase it. The mark for the step you got wrong is gone. What it protects is everything that came after, which on a multi-part question is usually the larger share of the marks.
Does follow-through work if I did the working on my calculator?
Only for a single-stage follow-through, where the examiner can verify the arithmetic from what is written. Anything involving more than one stage requires the relevant working to be on the page. On a calculator paper this is exactly the situation where marks are quietly lost: the thinking happened, and none of it was recorded.
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