Evaluation Gathering Levequests

I get inconsistent, confusing results for evaluation score.

I did the levequest "Catch My Drift" in Coerthas several times on max difficulty when I was level 35-39. At this point I was getting 7 or 9 evaluation score for every gather, (depending on whether I went for the low or high chance resource). This was enough to quite comfortably get +25% EXP. The reward for the quest was huge, roughly 35,000EXP (20,000 base, +15,000 for difficulty/speed/+25%).

However, I came back to this levequest later, at level 42. I did the quest on the same difficulty as before, thinking I'd be able to coast through it with my better stats and gear. This time, however, I only gained 4 score for the easy resource and 6 score for the more difficult one. This made it very difficult to get a high score and I wound up hitting +10%.

The same thing happened for"A Stash of Herbs" too

Can anyone tell me why my evaluation scores are dropping? It seems like it should get easier as you level up, not harder

The evaluation points are based on how much base xp that gather gives you... or rather, the difference in level between you and the item. It's best to do leves that are at your level.

Ahah! Thanks for the explanation. But that means that these leves are actually easier if you're underleveled and ramp the "difficulty" up, but harder the higher level you are? Still seems odd. But thanks!

Well, no. I don't think the points ever go higher than what you get if they're your level. Secondly, you need to actually GET the items to get points from them.

Lowering the score you get happens only if you're overlevelled compared to the leve, and that's to prevent you from using that you're overlevelled to get the max bonus.

Evaluation gathering leves are best done at same level as you are.
Assuming you're properly geared you should be able to use the +15% ability to get up to 100% for the "normal quality" items, get 5 items, use ability to get 100% on the hq item, get that.
For the 8 node version, I use a pot to recover GP somewhere in the middle, so I can keep going.