January marks the beginning of the exam period for many universities in the UK. Expecting to study at a British University, I was very interested in their assessment methods, particularly in the way they organized their exam periods. After a bit more research, I discovered the following:
In Britain, the number of exam periods varies with each university and the way it schedules its teaching curriculum. As a result, some universities have only one exam period starting in May for the whole academic year, while others have two exam periods starting in January and May, one for each term. As most of them consist of written examinations, I dug deeper to learn more about their features. Reading University has an informative article about these which offers more information that is easily applicable to British universities in general. Below you can find some of them:
– You will be expected to complete your answers to strict time constraints.
– You may not have to answer all the questions on the exam paper.
– Time is limited so you will have to carefully plan your answers.
– You will be expected to demonstrate how you can put your knowledge to use.
– Unless the question is purely factual, you will need to include critical analysis in your answers.
– You will not be expected to include detailed references as you would in your coursework, but you may wish to mention key theorists in your topic.
– There are very few exams in which you can get a mark of 100%, and this mark is not expected of you. Actually, the grading in the UK is split as it follows:
- 1:1 (above 70%)
- 2:1 (60% – 70%)
- 2:2 (50% – 60%)
- and 3rd (40% -50%)