1st year Exams in January

[[James]]

Quoting exnihilo from 16:35, 3rd Jan 2006
Ah, the bare minimum - that's what tutors and lecturers like to see, shows real commitment.

All I'm trying to do is offer people a bit of reassurance. It certainly helped me - even though I'm going to revise and try my best and all that, it's nice to know that even if the worst should happen and I screw up this exam, I'll still pass the module and get my 20 credits.

Quoting ribs from 16:50, 3rd Jan 2006
Does this work? I thought they were done on a none-linear scale which meant you can't just add them together?

In the subjects I've been talking about, there are two essays, each worth 20% of the module, and an exam worth 60%.

i.e.
overall mark out of 20 = (1st essay / 5) + (2nd essay / 5) + (3 x exam / 5)

(note that the exam mark would have to be converted to a figure out of 20)

If an essay is worth a fifth of your mark then to get its contribution to your overall mark you divide the essay score by 5, i.e. if you got 15/20 in an essay, divide 15 by 5 and you already have 3/20 in your overall mark.

Since

(1st essay / 5) + (2nd essay / 5)

can be simplified to

(1st essay + 2nd essay) / 5

then adding your marks will give you five times your overall mark so far, i.e. a total essay score of 25 gives you an overall mark of 5/20 - a pass in first year, without even considering the extra marks contributed by the exam. Obviously the situation is a bit different if you're in 2nd year looking to get into honours.

[exnihilo]

Obviously it varies from department to department, but in many while an overall 5 is all that's needed to get into second year, you do have to pass each component, so no matter what you had in your course work a 5 would still be required in the exam. Which is, really, only fair.

[[James]]

Quoting exnihilo from 01:06, 4th Jan 2006
you do have to pass each component, so no matter what you had in your course work a 5 would still be required in the exam. Which is, really, only fair.

I agree - but it's nice to be able to walk into that exam and know that hey, I've already got 7 marks before I even sit down!

[Fozzy Bear]

Quoting Malcolm from 19:28, 3rd Jan 2006
I'm bricking it about MT1001 and EC1002.

MT1001 is reeeeaaallllllllyyyyyyyyy easy i thought, and i'm not exactly the best at maths.
back when i did it the exam was similar to the past papers although you can't bet on the same thing happening this year.

i found that everything in MT1001 was the same as the stuff in higher maths if you did that (i'm assuming you did).

i found it easily the easiest exam i did in my first year anyway.
good luck with it, and don't worry about it too hard, it's not hard to get a 5.

[Cornelius]

If you decide to apply for a job in The City, or somewhere else reasonably competitive, then first year marks will be noted.

If you've failed to get straight 20s then the sexual favours required at interview will be more severe.

[physicist]

The system used for adding up grades is not as simple as "[James]" suggests.

[nl]
[li] Make every mark a proportion between 0 (lowest)and 1 (highest), i.e. divide every mark obtained by the maximum available. Then multiply by the proportion of the contribution for that part (e.g. 0.2 for 20%, percentage/100).
[li] Add all the parts together.
[li] Take the previous result through the department's grade function f: [0,1] -> [1,20], which is a continuous surjective function subject to f(0)=1, f(1)=20 and f(b) >= f(a) if, and only if, b >= a.
[li] Hence you get your grade for the module.
[/nl]

The following percentages corresponded to the following grades (from an old document):
[l]
[li] First: 94 -> 20, 87 -> 19, 80 -> 18, 74 -> 17
[li] Upper Second: 71 -> 16, 68 -> 15, 66 -> 14
[li] Lower Second: 63 -> 13, 61 -> 12, 58 -> 11
[li] Third: 56 -> 10, 53 -> 9, 51 -> 8
[li] Pass: 48 -> 7, 46 -> 6, 43 -> 5
[li] Fail: 35 -> 4, 25 -> 3, 12 -> 2, 0 -> 1
[/l]

[Amorphous]

Quoting physicist from 21:19, 4th Jan 2006
The system used for adding up grades is not as simple as "[James]" suggests.

Just to throw a(nother) spanner in the works, I'm fairly certain that the use of the 20-point scale differs between and maybe even within departments - in BL1004 last year, 17=70%, 18=80% and so on (it was less easy to calculate below a 17, don't remember how) while this year in BL2102 the graph seems to imply that 17=70%, 18=75%, 19=80% and 20=85%+.

Personally I think sticking with percentages would be much easier.

[Cain]

Quoting Cornelius from 18:49, 4th Jan 2006
If you've failed to get straight 20s then the sexual favours required at interview will be more severe.

i.e. - lube will only be offered to those candidates who have an upper 2:1 at least.

[hr]

I hold an element of surprise

[exnihilo]

How about all concentrating less on the mathematics of how to get your target and concentrate more on the actual work? Leave the marking and the calculating of grades to the staff.