Mathematics degree pass and failure rates in the UK.

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  1. PolarOpposite's Avatar
    • New Member
    • Posts: 8
    Mathematics degree pass and failure rates in the UK.
    Hello,


    I am on a mathematics degree course in Germany, and so far it looks like the course is structured to fail as many students in the first terms as possible.

    In the first 6 weeks of the first term, approximately 1/3 of the students taking the Analysis module were not allowed to continue it, and out of the ones who made it to the end only 39% passed the final test.
    This makes for an overall pass rate of ca. 25% in the first term of the Analysis module, I suspect the pass rates in Linear Algebra will be a bit higher, and the other subjects are not offered in the Summer term, so I don't know what the pass rates for all the modules of the first term are, but this seems terribly low.
    I wonder how the pass/failure rates are in the UK, and if this is normal or if my university it trying to trip people up.
  2. milienhaus's Avatar
    • Adored and Respected Member
    • Posts: 486
    Re: Mathematics degree pass and failure rates in the UK.
    That definitely is not similar to the UK, only a very small percentage of my year actually failed (~2%). Of course, if you count Ordinarys and Thirds as a fail (which TSR seems to usually do) it's probably more like 10%, but these are technically passing grades.

    Does your university have entry requirements? I had heard it was a European thing to let anyone go to university but then not everyone progress to second year due to lack of capability, but not sure how true this is.
  3. wanderlust.xx's Avatar
    • TSR Demigod
    • Location: London
    • Posts: 5,086
    Re: Mathematics degree pass and failure rates in the UK.
    I'd say that sounds about right... the first year, even though it was all introductory, still resulted in a good number of people failing. Way more than 2%. Many students opted for a maths degree because they thought they were good at it, then failed first year because they realised they weren't.
  4. nexttime's Avatar
    • TSR Idol
    • Posts: 8,188
    Re: Mathematics degree pass and failure rates in the UK.
    Its all on unistats - google it.

    I can tell you now no UK university fails even close to 75% of its students though. Even if you counted below 2.2 as a 'fail', i doubt there is a single university that would even hit 25%.
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