[Chubasco]

(Original post by Zoedotdot)

Sorry to quote you, but all the talk about calculating final grades/classes has made me realise that I don't have a clue how MML classes people (and the website helpfully says nothing...). Do you have any idea?

[Leipzig]

Just found out the Eurovision final is during the same week as ALL my finals :/

Can life get any worse?*




*jks, obvs... although I am fairly gutted.

[ukebert]

(Original post by Craghyrax)
That's really unfair In SPS if half of your individual paper marks are 1st then they give you a first overall if the other papers were 2.1s. If they were 2.2s or 3rds, I can't remember what happens but I think they just give you a grade based on your average instead, which seems a lot fairer.

The whole idea of a Masters is specialism, so it seems very wrongheaded to me that this far into your degree you're not allowed to snip out the things you don't like and focus on the bits you care about.

Aye. Like I said, department are bastards

(Original post by Amy Luo)
20% to pass? how many percentage do you need to get a 2:1?

Heh, I had already completed 5 out of my 8 modules before exams began (coursework only modules) and I had an idea about how I did. So the 20% was an estimate as to what I needed in that exam in order to pass the year. The year has a 50% pass mark in either half. Merit is 60%, Distinction is 70%. But the boundaries shift depending on how everybody does.

[Amy Luo]

(Original post by ukebert)

Heh, I had already completed 5 out of my 8 modules before exams began (coursework only modules) and I had an idea about how I did. So the 20% was an estimate as to what I needed in that exam in order to pass the year. The year has a 50% pass mark in either half. Merit is 60%, Distinction is 70%. But the boundaries shift depending on how everybody does.

so in master year there is no degree grading? like i said first or 2:1.
im sorry for asking such a stupid question but since i haven't started yet so i'm very confused with this tripo system

[Craghyrax]

(Original post by Leipzig)
Just found out the Eurovision final is during the same week as ALL my finals :/

Can life get any worse?*




*jks, obvs... although I am fairly gutted.

I haven't watched Eurovision since 2006 because of several years of exam terms!

[ukebert]

(Original post by Amy Luo)
so in master year there is no degree grading? like i said first or 2:1.
im sorry for asking such a stupid question but since i haven't started yet so i'm very confused with this tripo system

There is pass, merit and distinction. I have no idea why. And you are not the only one to be confused about the tripos system! The first three years are all first to third.

[Zoedotdot]

(Original post by Crazy_emz)
Sorry to quote you, but all the talk about calculating final grades/classes has made me realise that I don't have a clue how MML classes people (and the website helpfully says nothing...). Do you have any idea?

Based in what I've gathered from various comments and meetings:

Each script is marked by two people, and if the marks diverge wildly they can be checked by someone else. Then they have a big meeting where they look at each person's scripts as a whole and award them a class mark based on their work as a totality. So that's how people with only a 69 average can get a first - their average might not be over 70 but there is sustained evidence of first class work.

So basically, just as woolly and emotive as the rest of MML

[blueletter]

(Original post by ukebert)
There is pass, merit and distinction. I have no idea why. And you are not the only one to be confused about the tripos system! The first three years are all first to third.

Unless you're doing an MSci, in which case it's still first to third.

[ukebert]

(Original post by blueletter)
Unless you're doing an MSci, in which case it's still first to third.

Sorry, yes, that is just for the MEng. I think that everybody else does it more sensibly.

[blueletter]

(Original post by ukebert)
Sorry, yes, that is just for the MEng. I think that everybody else does it more sensibly.

Sorry for being pedantic. I hadn't noticed at the time that Amy Luo was an engineering student and so I thought more general information would be more useful.

[Zhen Lin]

(Original post by ukebert)
Sorry, yes, that is just for the MEng. I think that everybody else does it more sensibly.

Most of the M.A.St. degrees and the M.Math. degree are also Pass/Merit/Distinction. The M.Math. one goes back to the days before it was even a degree!

[ukdragon37]

(Original post by ukebert)
Sorry, yes, that is just for the MEng. I think that everybody else does it more sensibly.

MPhil Advanced Computer Science is P/M/D, whereas MEng Computer Science Tripos (Part III) is 1/2.i/2.ii/3 even though they are almost identical courses.

EDIT: Just check the classing convention document. Nope I was mistaken, Part III CompSci is also P/M/D

[ukebert]

I stand corrected!`

[Chubasco]

(Original post by Zoedotdot)
Based in what I've gathered from various comments and meetings:

Each script is marked by two people, and if the marks diverge wildly they can be checked by someone else. Then they have a big meeting where they look at each person's scripts as a whole and award them a class mark based on their work as a totality. So that's how people with only a 69 average can get a first - their average might not be over 70 but there is sustained evidence of first class work.

So basically, just as woolly and emotive as the rest of MML

Thanks, that figures Although at the moment getting a first seems like a ridiculous ambition....in some ways I would be happy not to wimp out with a huge panic attack like in second year

Also, the Language Essay paper....do they really expect us to write 2000-3000 words of fluent, grammatical Spanish/Russian/whatever in 3 hours? Not sure that I can even do that in English, but that's what I've been assured we have to do by my supervisor and by the lecturer....

*Edit* How do I change my user name? Am worried that I'm a bit too identifiable from my posts on here.

[Zoedotdot]

(Original post by Crazy_emz)
Thanks, that figures Although at the moment getting a first seems like a ridiculous ambition....in some ways I would be happy not to wimp out with a huge panic attack like in second year

Also, the Language Essay paper....do they really expect us to write 2000-3000 words of fluent, grammatical Spanish/Russian/whatever in 3 hours? Not sure that I can even do that in English, but that's what I've been assured we have to do by my supervisor and by the lecturer....

*Edit* How do I change my user name? Am worried that I'm a bit too identifiable from my posts on here.

I have drastically lowered my ambitions to getting higher than 65 (my average for the past two years) and even that's feeling like a bit of a vain hope at the moment, so I know exactly how you feel.

I think the Spanish department must be different to the Russian department in that respect... We're all aiming for around 1500 words, and my practice essays have never been over 1000 and my supervisor has said they were good. Are your questions not predictable at all? Mine really are, which makes the whole thing a lot easier.

Go to Ask a Supermoderator and request a name change in there. They only let you if your real name is identifiable from your username, which yours is, so hopefully they'll let you change.

[lp386]

Bleurgh. Up until yesterday I had severe writer's block but was still able to get some work done.
Now I can write, but I can't do academic work (or at least it feels like it...).

I've got through the equivalent of two lectures today, I should be working really hard on this project at the moment, and I'm in chapel all day tomorrow.

I feel hideously behind, I'm not feeling confident about being up to speed, I've got a DoS meeting this week where he'll either reject my concerns or tell me I'm not doing well enough, depending on whether he's started to panic yet.

So I will solve all my problems the only way I know how: cheesecake.

(As you can tell, the diet's not going well either :P )

EDIT: And now we're into the infinite loop of videos of soldiers coming home and surprising their families...

[Chubasco]

(Original post by Zoedotdot)
I have drastically lowered my ambitions to getting higher than 65 (my average for the past two years) and even that's feeling like a bit of a vain hope at the moment, so I know exactly how you feel.

I think the Spanish department must be different to the Russian department in that respect... We're all aiming for around 1500 words, and my practice essays have never been over 1000 and my supervisor has said they were good. Are your questions not predictable at all? Mine really are, which makes the whole thing a lot easier.

Go to Ask a Supermoderator and request a name change in there. They only let you if your real name is identifiable from your username, which yours is, so hopefully they'll let you change.

Thanks, have asked to change...hopefully they will be nice

I've been told by my supervisor that I need to write 2000 words, and RC said in her lecture that most people write 2000-3000. The questions are fairly predictable, but with a very different focus than the questions on the equivalent scheduled paper. And the scheduled paper itself is so broad: twelve topics and fifteen authors/artists...in supervisions we've done 2 topics and 5 authors And I haven't studied any visual artists at all, so if a question comes up, as it occasionally does, about visual arts, then I'm screwed...

[Zoedotdot]

(Original post by Crazy_emz)
Thanks, have asked to change...hopefully they will be nice

I've been told by my supervisor that I need to write 2000 words, and RC said in her lecture that most people write 2000-3000. The questions are fairly predictable, but with a very different focus than the questions on the equivalent scheduled paper. And the scheduled paper itself is so broad: twelve topics and fifteen authors/artists...in supervisions we've done 2 topics and 5 authors And I haven't studied any visual artists at all, so if a question comes up, as it occasionally does, about visual arts, then I'm screwed...

In that case, I think it must be a departmental difference. I've asked around and all of the russianists have agreed with me, and even one Germanist! So glad I didn't do Spanish now

I'm doing a rather predictable topic thankfully. I collated all the questions and picked out the central themes so I can prepare in a very focused way. How come you only have to do two topics for that paper? Does it have a commentary section? Commentaries are the current bane of my life. I have to do a timed one tomorrow. In one paper I have the choice between a commentary and an essay question, but in another I have to do a commentary on a text written in old Russian and km dreading it.

[Chubasco]

(Original post by Zoedotdot)
In that case, I think it must be a departmental difference. I've asked around and all of the russianists have agreed with me, and even one Germanist! So glad I didn't do Spanish now

I'm doing a rather predictable topic thankfully. I collated all the questions and picked out the central themes so I can prepare in a very focused way. How come you only have to do two topics for that paper? Does it have a commentary section? Commentaries are the current bane of my life. I have to do a timed one tomorrow. In one paper I have the choice between a commentary and an essay question, but in another I have to do a commentary on a text written in old Russian and km dreading it.

I bet I could probably manage about 1500 words of reasonable Spanish in 3 hours, so that will have to do

No, for that paper you have to do either two topics and one author, or one topic and two authors (and one of the answers has to be on poetry...). I have spent a week revising one of the topics I want to do (so then I can avoid the other one), but it's so stressful! Fortunately, I like author based questions more. Ouch, good luck with the commentary. From what I saw in medieval French, people actually did really well on the commentaries, so don't be put off by the old Russian (surely they must take into account that it's old Russian when they mark it?)

[Zoedotdot]

(Original post by Chubasco)
I bet I could probably manage about 1500 words of reasonable Spanish in 3 hours, so that will have to do

No, for that paper you have to do either two topics and one author, or one topic and two authors (and one of the answers has to be on poetry...). I have spent a week revising one of the topics I want to do (so then I can avoid the other one), but it's so stressful! Fortunately, I like author based questions more. Ouch, good luck with the commentary. From what I saw in medieval French, people actually did really well on the commentaries, so don't be put off by the old Russian (surely they must take into account that it's old Russian when they mark it?)

I think that will be fine. I'l be happy if I reach 1500 tbh.

Oh I see... Are you doing Lorca AGAIN? I just have one paper where you do two topics and then either a commentary or an essay on the set text, and then in the other paper it's two topics and a commentary. One would hope that they will take it into account. Thankfully I have a friend doing history of the Russian language who is going to talk me through the major grammatical features - it's a bit ridiculous because we take the paper but have no official tuition in the language and then have to sit an exam on it! And it's completely different to modern Russian. But I just need enough to be able to guess what the text is and which section it's from and then it will be okay