2:1?

I hope I can pass, as most of the assessment is coursework.

In most uni's, if you fail some units in the first year, would you be allowed to go onto the second year and resit those first year units?

Depends greatly on subject and uni.

LSE average 2.1 and above is 73% ish yet for law its only 60% (quoted on open day.)

If you nearly pass, and your average is reasonable, you may not have to resit the module at all. (Like I know someone who got 38% but because they got 40 for the year it was counted as a soft fail and they didn't have to resit.)

If you fail totally, or its a core module, then you usually have to resit in summer, you need to pass to go onto the second year. If you fail again, what exactly happens is up to your uni.

Well 40% at uni is a third, it's not really equivilant to a-levels. And just to pass is not really that hard in most subjects. If you actually do some work, then you'll be fine.

As my course tutor said its virtualy impossible to fail the final year project, as longs as you do what it tells you to do you pretty much have a pass, but to get 50% is much harder and so on.

Really you want to be averaging at least 60% and aim to get 65-70% in everrything becuase they will always be modules you find really difficult and only just pass, so if you have 65% in most modules but have 40% in say two you can still probably get a 2:1.

On the subject of grade classifications and passing, I thought I should share my experience on what I have noticed about the type of learners at university

Having just completed uni I believe there are three types of learners: "the progressive learners", "the exam time learners" and the "crammers"!

The "progressive learners" are those that learn the content of the course as it is taught, this way they spend about an hour or two each day organising their notes and going over all the lecture slides, notes and tutorials that they learnt that day. So that when the exam time comes all they have to do is quickly skim over their notes and concentrate the rest of their time on practising past papers rather than revising the course content.

The "exam time learners" are those that work just enough throughout the year to make sure they understand the material and can do the courseworks well. And about 1 month before the exams, they start to revise intensely but focusing mostly on the exam content rather than practising past papers and questions.

And finally there are the "crammers", who spend most of the year copying off their friends work, and overall doing very little work. When exam time comes they either photocopy somebody elses notes or just revise from their own notes filled with doodles and with "very few" annotations. They then try and do targeted revising by revising those topics they believe are most likely to come up.

And from what I have noticed, the "progressive learners" are the ones who mostly get the 1sts and 2:1s. The "exam time learners" get the 2:1s and 2:2s. While the "crammers" struggle behind and are mostly on 2:2s and 3rds.

Although it is possible to classify students into other intermediate categories, I believe that these 3 categories are the most distinct categories of students you will find at university.

PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THIS AS SOME SORT OF A GUIDE! As It is very possible for a crammer to get a 1st and a progressive learner to get a 3rd as there are other factors such as abilty to understand and learn the material quickly that also come into effect.

Yeah, makes sense to me too, and I couldn't agree more with you, Adarah. Besides, wouldn't it be nice to have a nice grade to finish off the first year with style?

Goodness, Adarah, I had no idea one could apply for a sponsorship from the BBC! What exactly does that involve? (Also, completely off-topic, but would you happen to speak Italian? Whereabouts in Italy do you live?)

Thanks for the information. Well, I'll be studying Japanese and Politics at SOAS, so it looks like technically I'm not entitled to the BBC sponsorship - but I'll definitely give the British Council a ring! It's a little annoying, though, isn't it, that EU students aren't allowed to apply for student loans, etc.!

You are very lucky to live in Italy. I'll be going there this summer with my parents (joy), but have never had the opportunity to see much of it. Do the Dolomites correspond to the Alto Adige region? Also, will you be studying Physics?