Red Shell · Common Errors

All mistakes/Section 6: The subjective block

6.3Subjective criteria that require your golden's wording

Costs pointsRubric Criteria - Overall Rubric Quality

The mistake

A subjective criterion requires the exact heading or label your golden happens to use, words no prompt contains.

Do this instead

Name the element by what it is, and grade how it is presented, not what it is called.

Where it happened

One real task. Each shows the spot and what it should have been; click any line to open the task there.

the words at faultthe row or field at faultmissing from the taskwhat is righta task file

Example 32Small Business & Personal Docs · 3 Leg A turns

What is wrongNine of ten subjective criteria require the golden page's own headings and labels, such as “Claim 1 - May trip”, which none of the three Leg A prompts asks for.

Leg A turns 1 to 3 ask for reimbursement_status.html: for each of two mileage claims, whether the money reached Noor, and the deadline for an overdue one.

Where it shows

In reimbursement_status.html, two claim cards sit in one row, headed Claim 1 - May trip on the left and Claim 2 - August trip on the right.
…a four-column table has the header row Claim, Reached your account?, Due by 28 Aug?, and Verdict.
None of the three asks for these headings.

What it should have been

In reimbursement_status.html, the two claims are presented as two cards side by side rather than one after the other.
In reimbursement_status.html, the determination table's header row is set apart from its data rows by colour or weight.

How it breaks the standardNo Leg A prompt asks for these headings; they are the golden's choices. Each criterion copies the golden page, so nothing flags it, but a correct page with its own headings fails subjective criteria 1 and 4 and seven more. Only subjective criterion 2 names a property without quoting text.

The rule it breaksQC spec appendix · Multi-Turn Authoring Standards · Writing Subjective Rubrics Name ONE observable property of the RENDERED artifact. A property, not one build's wording.

Catch it in your own task

Search the prompts for every label a subjective criterion quotes. Not found: it grades your wording. Found: it belongs in the objective block.

Where the correct guidance is written

Section titles as they print, so you can search for them in the document.

QC spec appendix · Multi-Turn Authoring Standards · Writing Subjective Rubrics

Name ONE observable property of the RENDERED artifact. The judge sees the render, not the intent behind it.

A property, not one build's wording.

Guidelines · 8.1 Writing Subjective Rubrics

If anything related to the render is asked in the prompt, it requires an objective rubric ONLY.

A label you chose is graded nowhere.

Why it matters

Subjective rubrics grade how the artifact reads: layout, hierarchy, spacing, consistency. A criterion naming one build's text rejects a subset of valid implementations, and a second correct run presenting the same results under its own wording fails almost the whole block. Overfitting counts toward the share of criteria built wrong, and the task fails once that share passes 15% of all its criteria. Where most of the block is written this way, rewriting three or four is not enough.

Every example taken apart, with the task, how it breaks the standard and what it should have been: 6.3 Subjective criteria that require your golden's wording, in the explanations →