Asking Marko questions
Marko is great at answering questions about your class, your assessments, and your students. Anything you’d otherwise have to click through several screens to find out, you can usually just ask.
This article covers question-style prompts and what works well.
What you can ask about
Marko has direct access to your assessments, submissions, marks, students, classes, and share links. Things you can ask:
- Class performance — “how did the class do on the Year 9 essay?” “what’s the average mark?”
- Question performance — “which questions did the class find hardest?” “which questions had the most marks lost?”
- Misconceptions — “what mistakes were students making on this paper?”
- Individual students — “how is Alice doing?” “who’s regressed since the last assessment?”
- Across assessments — “how did this class do compared to last term?” “who’s improved the most?”
- Specific marks — “why was Sam given 3/5 on Q4?” “how was this graded?”
- Status checks — “which assessments are still being marked?” “any submissions stuck?”
Tips for getting good answers
- Be specific where it matters. “How did the class do?” is fine when you’re on an assessment page — the scope chip tells Marko which class. When you’re not, name it: “how did the Year 9 Biology Test 1 class do?”
- Ask follow-ups. Marko keeps the thread of the conversation, so you can drill in: “and what about the top three?”
- Don’t worry about wording. Plain English works. “What’s tough?” gets you a different angle than “which questions had low marks?” — try both if the first doesn’t quite land.
What Marko shows you
Marko answers in a short narrative first — the headline finding — then offers to drill deeper. For example, asking about class performance might come back with “The class averaged 14/20 on this assessment. Q6 pulled the average down the most. Want me to show you?”
If the answer references specific submissions or students, the links are clickable — you can jump to that submission in a click.
For deeper analysis
For more elaborate cross-assessment work — “compare this term’s results to last term’s”, “who’s improved most” — see Comparing assessments and finding patterns with Marko.
Need help?
Click the chat icon in the app or email connect@marking.ai.
FAQs
Can Marko give me wrong answers?
Marko can occasionally misunderstand, especially with very ambiguous questions. The links in Marko’s responses are clickable so you can verify the data yourself when something looks off.
Will Marko summarise hundreds of submissions?
Yes — Marko can summarise patterns across your entire class, or even across multiple assessments. For genuinely huge data sets, give Marko a tighter question and it’ll respond faster.
Can I ask Marko questions about my plan or settings?
Yes — things like “how many submissions do I have left this month?” or “open my billing settings” both work.