What a template contains
A template bundles the four things Markaroo needs to grade an answer: the questions, the mark scheme, the total marks, and a few settings that tell the AI which examiner conventions to follow.
| Field | What to provide |
|---|---|
| Name | Anything memorable: "Paper 2 — Macro essay", "Mock 1 March 2026". |
| Subject | Inherits from the workspace. You can override per template. |
| Exam board | AQA, Edexcel, OCR, WJEC, or "Teacher's own". |
| Level | GCSE or A Level. |
| Total marks | 15, 20, 25, or a custom value. |
| Question Paper | PDF, or paste the questions as text. |
| Marking Scheme | PDF, or paste as text. Include any AO weightings or examiner notes. |
Walkthrough
Open the Templates tab and click Create Template
The new-template wizard opens.
Fill in the metadata
Name, exam board, level, total marks. These settings tell Markaroo which mark-scheme conventions to apply.
Upload the question paper
Drop a PDF, or paste the question text. Markaroo splits a multi-question PDF into its parts automatically — you don't need to crop or separate by hand.
Upload the marking scheme
Drop the official mark scheme PDF, or paste it. Include AO descriptors, level descriptors, and any indicative content the board published. The more you give Markaroo, the closer the marks track examiner standardisation.
Optional: drop in initial answer sheets
If you already have a stack of student PDFs, you can attach them now and Markaroo will grade them as the template saves. Or do this later from the template card with Grade Students.
Save
The template appears on the Templates tab with a status badge.
Template status badges
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Ready | The question paper and marking scheme were extracted successfully. You can grade answers against this template. |
| Incomplete | Something is missing — usually the marking scheme or total marks. Open the template to finish setting it up. |
| Extraction Failed | The PDF couldn't be read. Try a different PDF (e.g. one with selectable text, not a scan), or paste the content as text instead. |
| Partial Extraction | Some questions or marks were extracted but not all. Open the template and complete the gaps manually. |
Grading modes
Markaroo grades in one of two modes, picked automatically by subject — you don't need to choose.
- Per-question grading — used for essay subjects (Economics, Politics, History, English, Psychology, Geography, Business). Each question gets its own mark and feedback, with AO-by-AO breakdown.
- Whole-paper reasoning (Mode 3) — used for Physics and other quantitative papers, where credit flows through working. Markaroo follows the working end-to-end before assigning marks.
Templates are reusable. Mark a paper once for last year's cohort, keep the template, and grade this year's cohort with one click. You can also duplicate a template to use as the basis for a new mock.
"Teacher's own" questions
Not using an exam board paper? Choose Teacher's own as the exam board and paste your own questions and your own marking scheme. Markaroo grades against the scheme you provide — there's no requirement to mirror an AQA or Edexcel layout.