40% on an essay...?

Right, I'm really desperate to finish an essay and I'm just wondering, exactly how bad does an essay have to be for it to fall below the 40% mark? I'm an English Lit student and as usual I've left it til the last minute (in fact it was due in today :redface:

) and all I want is to get 40%!!!

Reply 1

Alan Smithee

It has to be pretty rubbsih

With typos like that one.

Reply 2

JackieS

SophistiCat

) and all I want is to get 40%!!!

well some uni's operate the policy that handing in late (even one day) means that your mark can be no greater than 40%, so by not handing in today you're pretty much almost there :wink:

Reply 3

Drogue

Where I am, really bad. I mean *really* bad. But then if I get 55 on an essay, my tutor would want words with me, to find out what went wrong. He's a relatively easy marker, and he works us hard though.

But most places it would have to be pretty bad. Our exam grading says it would have to show little to no knowledge of the subject and be badly written to fail.

Reply 4

schmeeble

Really REALLY bad.. i mean REALLY SO TOTALLY AWFUL, a 5 year old could have done better!

Reply 5

tangsiuje

Or just avoid the set essay question. That's very likely to result in crappy marks. They'll probably give you 40% out of compassion anyway. :wink:

Reply 6

xXMessedUpXx

JackieS

well some uni's operate the policy that handing in late (even one day) means that your mark can be no greater than 40%, so by not handing in today you're pretty much almost there :wink:

I thought my uni's policy was that, then i'm told that only applies if you have an extension from admin :s:

Reply 7

JackieS

xXMessedUpXx

I thought my uni's policy was that, then i'm told that only applies if you have an extension from admin :s:

guess it depends on your uni - on my first course if it was anything up to a week late it was capped at 40%. A week plus was an automatic fail (assuming you didn't get an extension for whatever reason)

Reply 8

white_haired_wizard

I think often, if it shows 'some' effort, they'll just give you the pass mark of 35 or 40 marks, whatever the pass mark may be - they don't want any more hassle/extra work of marking someones work, someone who blatantly hasn't tried hard enough, the teacher will be thinking to themselves, "sod him/her...do i give a rats ass if he/she translates this same miniscule of effort into the important assessed work?....and doing equally as poor as a result, NO..."

I did this before with one essay in particular - it got 40, it was absolute waffley cr ap with no theoretical framework at all. BUT IT 'PASSED'...just make damn sure you're not so professionalism-devoid when it comes to the real important stuff.