Course assessment and rules

Coursework, marking, and assessment rules.

Assessment

For all years

All of the undergraduate maths courses have some coursework component which contributes to your final grade in the course. You can find the breakdown for each course on the relevant DRPS page.

In your honours years

Your grades now count towards degree classification

The grade of every course you take from now on will now be used to calculate your degree classification. The precise calculation will depend on which degree programme you are on. 

• For all four year School of Mathematics degrees, it will be the average of your Year 3 and Year 4 marks.
• For MMath it will be calculated on your Year 3, 4 and 5 averages with the weighting 20:40:40.
• If you are on a degree that is not owned by the School of Mathematics then you should check with your own School. 
• If you fail a course that mark will still count towards your degree classification. 

Marking

The marks for coursework and examination will be merged using weightings of the course to form the final course mark, which will be used to determine your grade according to the University’s Extended Common Marking Scheme. 

University extended common marking scheme

Note that many courses (including many pre-honours courses that have an exam) also require a pass in the examination in addition to passing the course overall. All assessments follow the University Assessment Regulations.

University Assessment Regulations

Scaling

It is not always easy to predict in advance how hard or easy an exam or other assessment will turn out to be.  For that reason, to ensure the outcome of assessment is fair and reasonable, exams and other substantial assessments are “moderated”.   This means that the marks received on the common marking scheme may differ from the “raw” mark on the script that was originally generated by the marker(s) of the assessment.  

In performing this scaling, we pay attention to a number of sources of information such as: whether it is apparent from student attempts that parts of the assessment were easier or harder than expected; whether the distribution of class marks is in accordance with norms for pass rates, proportion of A grades, etc. In response to this information it may be decided to scale marks up or down.

The final marks for components of assessment are decided by the Board of Examiners.  They may, after discussion, decide to adjust the moderated marks, by changing or introducing a scaling.   In particular, moderated marks for coursework may on occasion be adjusted by the Board of Examiners.

Difference between honours and ordinary

Resits are not allowed for any exams in courses which count towards an honours degree classification (that is courses taken in Years 3-5). On an ordinary degree, you are entitled to resit.