Question for Russell Group Uni Essay Exam Students

I am looking for students who have or currently study at a Russell Group Uni.

When you did exams which required you to memorise essays for SEEN exams, were you required to memorise the references for the essay and not allowed to take in a reference list?

I have an upcoming exam (biological sciences) (at a non-RG Uni) and our lecturer said he's making us memorise the references as that's how RG unis expect you to do it... He said he's preparing us for going onto PG courses at RG unis and doesn't want this to be a culture shock.

Could any of you confirm whether this is true?

I'm memorising my references, just seems like another unneccessary hurdle alongside having to memorise two separate essays.

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 1

Notoriety

Might be best if you tell people what subject you study.

Reply 2

CTLeafez

Original post by Notoriety

Might be best if you tell people what subject you study.

Apologies, biological sciences

Reply 3

Notoriety

Original post by CTLeafez

Apologies, biological sciences

No worries. Will leave it to some bio students -- isn't @CheeseIsVeg one?

Will comment that I think it is rather naive to say all RGs do something a certain way. It might be expected that you do X at a high level, but to suggest that X is done at RG is a bit daft.

Reply 4

CheeseIsVeg

Original post by Notoriety

ew gosh no no no :puke:

chemistry student here, don't have essay based exams :erm:

have done lab reports and presentations where referencing is just summarised the end in text :dontknow:

Reply 5

CTLeafez

Original post by CheeseIsVeg

ew gosh no no no :puke:

chemistry student here, don't have essay based exams :erm:

have done lab reports and presentations where referencing is just summarised the end in text :dontknow:

I've had to do referencing at the end of lab reports and presentations too.

This is my final exam of Level 6 so I'm seeing this essay as the final push before I get my degree! :biggrin:

Can't make it too easy for us.

I've got an offer to Nottingham for an MSc so I was wondering whether I'd have to memorise references in the future too.

Reply 6

MidgetFever

We don't have to memorise the references in my course. It might differ from course to course though. That being said I study law, where there's a lot of case references it would be absurd to expect us to memorise all of it.

Reply 7

CheeseIsVeg

Original post by CTLeafez

I've had to do referencing at the end of lab reports and presentations too.

This is my final exam of Level 6 so I'm seeing this essay as the final push before I get my degree! :biggrin:

Can't make it too easy for us.

I've got an offer to Nottingham for an MSc so I was wondering whether I'd have to memorise references in the future too.

all the best!

I think you'd be best asking bioscience students at Nottingham maybe
but I've not heard of this before and it seems awful really :s-smilie:

you got this :rave:

Reply 8

CTLeafez

Original post by MidgetFever

I could imagine!

I've gotta memorise about 35 ish references atm. It's annoying but just gotta deal with it, it seems :P

Reply 9

MidgetFever

Original post by CTLeafez

I could imagine!

I've gotta memorise about 35 ish references atm. It's annoying but just gotta deal with it, it seems :P

That sounds pretty tough, but I'm sure you'll pull through! Good luck!

Reply 10

CTLeafez

Original post by MidgetFever

That sounds pretty tough, but I'm sure you'll pull through! Good luck!

Yeahhh, just the final push now. Currently in the library revising (/procrastinating) the essays,

Good luck to yourself too! :h:

Reply 11

Clearing and Applications Advisor

In our geology essay exams we had to cite remembered references. Didn’t need a list of detailed information at the end but we were expecting to cite Holness (1988) etc in exam essays.

Essay topics weren’t told to us before the exams. It was just expected that we would cite key papers on the module content from memory. That was one of the key differences between a 2:2 and a 2:1 result in the exam essays.