The Student Room Group

First in Humanities harder than first in Science?

As far as i can see:

Most Sciences marked out of 100, therefore:

3rd: = 40/100 = 40%
2:2: = 50/100 = 50%
2:1: = 60/100 = 60%
1sr: = 70/100 = 70%

Most Humanities marked out of 85, therefore:

3rd: = 40/85 = 47%
2:2: = 50/85 = 59%
2:1: = 60/85 = 71%
1sr: = 70/85 = 82%

So it takes on average 10% more points to get each grade in Huamnities.

So are the exams 10% harder? Maybe? Discuss. (On my desk tomorrow morning and my God you better have a 2:1 or better)

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Reply 1
Depends which humanities you're talking about.
In many way, language exams are very much like Maths and Science, in that you just have to learn the facts. If you don't know your verb endings or your mathematical formulae, you fail. That's all there is to it.
Reply 2
Yes they are, but not for those reasons. Science subjects are more knowledge based, and thus there's a wide spread - more firsts and more thirds. Essay subjects are more argument based, which leads to a narrower spread and a lot of 2:1s.

Maths at Cam often gives out over 30% firsts, but there are also a comparitively large proportion of 2:2s, 3rds and fails. Whereas most arts subjects fall into the 10-25% range.
Reply 3
As far as I know, or at least in my subject (languages), 70% is still a first, 60% a 2:1, etc.
I wasn't really interested in the relative difficulties in the subjects rather than the relative diffreences in % required to get each grade boundaries.
Reply 5
Tom Holder
I wasn't really interested in the relative difficulties in the subjects rather than the relative diffreences in % required to get each grade boundaries.


as far as i understood the % remains the same as eleri said, just it's exceptionally unlikely humanities students would score over say 85% so for most intents & purposes they'd consider it out of 85...whereas a clutch of scientists score in the 90s, so viewing it as out of 100 is more realistic? :smile:
Except this "exceptionally unlikely" is impossible.

So i can get everything CORRECT in a logic paper (assuming no essays) and still only get 85
I thought they were just marked out of 85 - not percentage, the percentage would be your mark divided by 85 etc. Maybe I'm confused, but I'm sure that's how our MOds (classics) were done.
Reply 8
well i wouldn't have considered logic to be a humanities paper actually, but pff, what do i know about humanities. :wink:

anyhow in our examiners report it makes reference to:


...a further conversion to the standard University scale*...

*In which the First Class borderline is set at 70%; the 2i-2ii border at 60%; the 2ii 3rd border at 50%; and the Pass 3rd border at 30%. Fail is at 15%.


so by that token if humanities are only 'marked out of 85' then your initial example of 2:1: = 60/85 = 71% would be equivalent to a 1st, rather than it being '10% harder' because they're not using the full scale? because it's so "exceptionally unlikely" people would deserve it or something...
although then if it's made into a % anyway it seems rather silly & artsy not too.. :confused:
Reply 9
The mark out of 85 is by custom. The general argument goes that no student, however bright, could get more than 85%. The exams are nominally marked out of 100, it's just they never give anyone higher than 85. I agree it's strange, but it's what they do :rolleyes:
Reply 10
Drogue
The mark out of 85 is by custom. The general argument goes that no student, however bright, could get more than 85%. The exams are nominally marked out of 100, it's just they never give anyone higher than 85. I agree it's strange, but it's what they do :rolleyes:


in which case, i think it's perhaps more a function of exam format rather than merely science/humanity divide. :smile:

e.g. in my case (& so some cross over with other scientists such as physiology, PPP, EP etc) 40% of my finals are essay based exam papers, 20% medium answer responses, 20% an extended essay & 20% an original research project.

so very little scope for right/wrong answers & just regurgitating rote learned facts = i'd be surprised if the 85-100 marks are utilised very much at all. can't find out individual paper score breakdowns, but the highest overall mark in our FHS last year was ~76%. which compared to other subjects like chemistry/maths is probably fairly low..
& i'd be inclined to think it is more a quirk of the format rather than subject demographic intelligence, given we're one of the few perfect 30.0 entry stats subjects & have had 2 weeding out opportunities by the time we reach FHS. or i like to flatter myself.. :cool: :wink:
Reply 11
percent scores are mostly arbitrary, especially in an essay based course. They could make the upper standard for a 1st 90% (like they sort of do in America), not change the tests or the teaching and still come out with the same number of people acheiving a 1st.

You can't really say that one degree is "harder" to get a 1st in simply from the percent of points needed. A better measure would be the actual number of students who receive 1sts, but even that is misleading because of the differences between an art or a science subject.
Reply 12
Elles
so very little scope for right/wrong answers & just regurgitating rote learned facts = i'd be surprised if the 85-100 marks are utilised very much at all. can't find out individual paper score breakdowns, but the highest overall mark in our FHS last year was ~76%. which compared to other subjects like chemistry/maths is probably fairly low..

And quite similar to arts subjects. I know people who've got 75 averages in prelims/collections before.

Elles
& i'd be inclined to think it is more a quirk of the format rather than subject demographic intelligence, given we're one of the few perfect 30.0 entry stats subjects & have had 2 weeding out opportunities by the time we reach FHS. or i like to flatter myself.. :cool: :wink:

Yes, we know you're all genii :p: :wink:
Reply 13
I would imagine that the marking is also more subjective in the arts subjects.
Reply 14
jcd
I would imagine that the marking is also more subjective in the arts subjects.


although surely even artist subjects do need some accepted facts/evidence in rather than just pure stylish flair? :wink:

again, i think the lines between arts & some sciences may be fairly blurred in terms of subjectivity of marking.
as i sort of alluded to in my previous post - mine's near exclusively essay based & alas far from as black/white regurgitate textbook facts as GCSE/A2s were.

in fact some of my titles have been pretty damn controversial. :cool:
but maybe the controversies/evidence analysis/argument required in sciences are less immediately obvious/accessible concepts to people not studying them? :redface: whereas most people probably form day to day opinions & arguments on politics, law, culture albeit probably not at degree level... :smile:
Reply 15
Drogue
The mark out of 85 is by custom. The general argument goes that no student, however bright, could get more than 85%. The exams are nominally marked out of 100, it's just they never give anyone higher than 85. I agree it's strange, but it's what they do :rolleyes:

This is because 90% is listed in our subject guides as being "of publishable quality" - what are the odds of any undergraduate achieving this?
Angelil
This is because 90% is listed in our subject guides as being "of publishable quality" - what are the odds of any undergraduate achieving this?


1 in 10.
Reply 17
ha ha ha very funny.
the threshold is most probably so high because they don't EXPECT any undergraduate to be able to achieve it...
Tom Holder
As far as i can see:

Most Sciences marked out of 100, therefore:

3rd: = 40/100 = 40%
2:2: = 50/100 = 50%
2:1: = 60/100 = 60%
1sr: = 70/100 = 70%

Most Humanities marked out of 85, therefore:

3rd: = 40/85 = 47%
2:2: = 50/85 = 59%
2:1: = 60/85 = 71%
1sr: = 70/85 = 82%

So it takes on average 10% more points to get each grade in Huamnities.

So are the exams 10% harder? Maybe? Discuss. (On my desk tomorrow morning and my God you better have a 2:1 or better)


Yes but you trying getting 70% in a science paper... its quite tricky. Id say they are about the same. Thats the whole reason that they are offset that way. Id say its easier to get a few marks for humanities than sciences, you just blag it.

That doesnt work in science.
Trying to look at percentages, boundaries etc, to determine whether it's easier or harder to get a given classification, is totally misleading. Yes, they mark many humanities essentially out of 85 - but they don't say "right, this paper gets 72%, of 85 that's 61 marks - okay, that's a 2:1." They say, "right, this is a 2:1 quality answer, and at the low end of a 2:1 - let's say 61." A first-quality answer is a first-quality answer and will get a first, regardless of the actual scoring methodology.