[wanderlust.xx]

Pretty simple question I suppose.

I just had an exam today, and it was actually a small amount of people who took it (probably less than 30 overall).

The paper was horrendous. The questions were much more difficult than expected and overall everyone agreed it was a very tough paper in comparison to our lecture notes, problem sets and past papers. Granted, I do not know precisely what people put on the sheet or how the lecturer is grading it all (he might be looking for knowledge of theory more than application), but even so, this is all speculative.

All I know is that if everyone else has failed, I have too, and vice versa. So I'm just asking, is it possible that a lecturer can fail every student on his course? I'm not saying 'give less than 60%', I'm saying outright fail them.

Would this be looked into by the university or does it have no real repercussion to anyone but us?

Granted it's an extremely likely scenario and the more likely outcome is that everyone's done much better than expected (or he gave us a difficult paper and wanted to see how we would work under pressure).

[tehforum]

Yes.

[SnoochToTheBooch]

everyone scores higher.

[wanderlust.xx]

(Original post by tehforum)
Yes.

(Original post by SnoochToTheBooch)
everyone scores higher.

So which one is it?

If 3 of the brightest students in the entire year did this paper and found it difficult/talked about failing I really doubt that this scenario could occur, I guess. I don't know, perhaps I'm just nervous.

[SnoochToTheBooch]

(Original post by wanderlust.xx)
So which one is it?

If 3 of the brightest students in the entire year did this paper and found it difficult/talked about failing I really doubt that this scenario could occur, I guess. I don't know, perhaps I'm just nervous.

well maybe it depends on who is setting/marking the exam, but I have definitely sat exams where everyone did badly so the grade boundaries were lowered.

[Little Hobbit]

I asked my lecturer this and he says the grade boundaries wouldn't be lowered, if everyone fails everyone resits.

It's not the same everywhere though. I study nursing, he said for medicine the grade boundaries are lowered.

Best to ask your lecturer or just keep your fingers crossed.

[Blazara]

It'll surely depend on the nature of the course / convenors choice as to whether it's fixed boundaries or "top 10% scorers get a first" style.

[hobnob]

(Original post by wanderlust.xx)
So which one is it?

If 3 of the brightest students in the entire year did this paper and found it difficult/talked about failing I really doubt that this scenario could occur, I guess. I don't know, perhaps I'm just nervous.

Well *technically* your tutor would be able to fail everyone, but in reality the department would be on his back and put pressure on him to raise marks until a reasonable number of people had passed. He'd have a hard time arguing his case and would most likely lose the argument anyway, because most departments prefer to avoid trouble in the shape of an entire year group that has failed an exam and all the hassle and complaints associated with that. Even if they did all deserve to fail.

[Dez]

You should check with your department. Universities are pretty much a law onto themselves so there's no universal way of dealing with this sort of thing. At my old uni they had a few procedures in place where they'd evaluate the paper, and if necessary they would apply a piecewise linear transformation (this was the Maths department ), scaling up everyone's grade. If you're worried it may also be worth contacting your supervisor, so he/she can flag it up.

[Cicerao]

My friend is a lecturer and he says that if he failed everyone he would face trouble at work from supervisor - it would reflect badly on his teaching or that he had set the exam at too high a level etc. So it wouldn't happen.