I am producing work of a very high quality, but this is not reflected in my grades. Why?

It is very common for A-level Art students who produce work which displays outstanding quality and technical skill to feel that their abilities are not reflected by their grades. This problem arises when students are demonstrating great technical skill but are not meeting the other requirements set by the exam board.In both AQA and Edexcel mark schemes, students must fulfil all four of the Assessment Objectives (each of which are worth a maximum of 24 marks) to achieve the highest grades. These are:AO1: requires students to include and analyse contextual sources (works by other artists), and use this to inform the development of their project.AO2: requires students to experiment with a variety of media and demonstrate their ability to refine ideas. AO3: requires demonstration of technical skill and critical annotation. AO4: requires students to complete a final outcome which should be the end result of their sketchbook development. When students are producing work of a very high technical standard but their overall grades are not reflecting this quality, it is often because the student is receiving uneven marks across the different AOs. That is to say, they are scoring highly on AO3 (technical skills) but are not receiving as high marks in the other Objectives, which results in a lower overall mark.   If a student came to me with this problem, I would recommend reviewing their existing sketchbook work together to identify elements which could be added in order to meet the Assessment Objectives more fully, whilst also planning ahead to ensure that the AOs will be met consistently throughout the sketchbook.