Please take a few minutes to read through these headings as there is useful information that will be of help to you, whether you are doing first assessments or re-sits this summer.
You can find help with preparation for your exams by going to the Useful Links section below.
To see what a formal exam is like, and what you can and can’t take with you into the exam room, have a look at this video clip:
There are some really good basic tips on exam technique in the Education Guardian: 10 things academics say students get wrong in exams.
If you have an exceptional, short-term difficulty, such as a sudden and severe illness, which stops you from attending an exam, handing in an assessment on time or from doing your best, you can apply to your Faculty Exceptional Factors Panel for another chance to do the work. You will need to submit evidence, for example a doctor’s note.
An Exceptional Factors Panel will not increase your marks or degree classification. If your evidence is accepted, you will normally get extra time to complete your assignment or the chance to sit an examination again.
You can read the Exceptional Factors Procedure on-line.
To print off an application form, scroll down to ‘How do I make a claim’ on that page.
| Faculty | Submission deadlines prior to Summer term Board of Examiners Meetings |
Submission deadlines prior to Re-sit Board of Examiners meetings |
|---|---|---|
|
Art and Design |
28th May |
19th August |
|
Humanities and Social Science |
24th May |
16th August |
|
School of Law (Legal Practice Course) |
26th June |
18th October |
|
School of Law (Bar Professional Course) |
26th June |
18th October |
|
Business School (including LLB) |
3rd June |
To be confirmed |
|
Faculty of Science and Engineering |
24th May |
23rd August |
|
Hollings Faculty |
24th May |
23rd August |
|
MMU Cheshire (including Combined Honours and Foundation Courses based at MMU Cheshire) |
21st May |
16th August |
|
Faculty of Health, Psychology and Social Care |
Courses based at Didsbury: 23rd May Courses based at Elizabeth Gaskell: 23rd May |
Courses based at Didsbury: 22nd August Courses based at Elizabeth Gaskell: 22nd August |
|
Faculty of Education |
27th May | 22nd August |
Everyone knows what cheating in examinations is. It comes in many forms, such as copying, using crib notes or a mobile phone, or attempting to communicate with other students. Even possessing crib notes that you do not use is regarded as cheating. The exam invigilators have been trained to spot the tell-tale signs and often other students will report if they see someone cheating, so please don’t try it. You will be letting yourself down.
If you are caught cheating in a formal examination, you could be given 0% in ALL your exam papers. If you have to re-take them, the maximum mark you will get is 40%
See this video clip made by our Theatre School students:
If you are planning to be away from Manchester after your examinations, there are some simple but important things you should do before you go:
Plan your vacation activities carefully.
Students on undergraduate courses – If you have to re-sit any examinations, these will take place during the weeks beginning 12th August and 19th August 2013.
The deadline for re-sit coursework for undergraduate degree course is Friday 9th August 2013.
The Muslim Festival of Eid al-Fitr falls on 8th August this year. If you are planning any celebrations please don’t forget that you will still have to hand in any re-sit coursework on Friday 9th August.
Always check your results letter carefully for your resubmission date.
Going home for the summer, participating in work experience or other activities like Camp America, will not be accepted as an excuse for missing re-sits or the re-submission date, no matter how valuable you think they are.
If you think you have passed everything, you should still spend some of the time going over last year’s work and planning for the next stage of your studies. Your effort will not be wasted.
See your tutor before you go, especially if you have had difficulties during the year. Visit the Library as well for any important learning material.
Make sure you take important books, notes, hand-outs and memory sticks etc. with you.
Check that we have your up to date contact details for sending results. You can do this by going to contact management online.
Read your results letter carefully. If there is anything you do not understand, contact your SIP, Life Office or Student Support Officer Find your SIP contact details here.
If you do not pass your assessments first time, you will have a chance to do re-sits in August of up to 60 credits and you must make a serious effort to prepare for these.
If you pass, the maximum mark you can achieve for any re-sit is the basic pass mark. For undergraduate degrees this is 40% and for postgraduate degrees 50%. This maximum mark for re-sits is called ‘capping’.
If you fail more than 60 credits your results letter will contain details of your reassessments.
If you do not take the exams…
If you miss the coursework deadline…
If you simply ‘turn up’ without doing any work…
You will not get a second re-sit. Make every effort to prepare, to attend and to hand in any re-sit coursework work on time.
If you fail your re-sit, you will be given a FINAL chance in the summer term of 2014, but ONLY if you made a serious attempt at your first re-assessments. This serious attempt called the ‘full engagement rule’.
The full engagement rule states;
‘Normally, full engagement with re-assessment shall be demonstrated where students:
- re-submit all items of coursework that they are required to re-submit;
- and attend all re-sit examinations that they are required to attend and comply fully with University examination rules;
- and attend or participate in any other re-assessment events and activities that they are required to undertake.’
This rule will only be waived if an Exceptional Factors Panel accepts that you had a very good reason for not fully engaging in your first re-assessments.
If you did not engage fully and seriously with your first re-assessment and you fail, you will have to leave your course, even if you did some of the work.
If you have to re-sit examinations or coursework there is a flat fee of £50 to cover all the re-sits relating to the current examination session. The period covered by the fee starts from the first time you are assessed by the Board of Examiners, usually in April/May 2013. It will cover you for up to two re-assessments of the original failure (s), which are normally taken in August 2013 and if you are permitted to have an additional re-sit – usually in or before April/May 2014.
If you paid £50 to re-sit in the summer of 2012, that fee will now have expired as first re-sits were held in August 2012 and final re-sits April/May 2013. It will not cover you for any new re-sits arising from new assessments you took for the first time in April/May 2013. You will have to pay a new £50 fee.
The only extension of the original fee is if you missed the second re-sits because of exceptional factors that have been accepted by a Faculty Panel. In this case your original fee will cover you, if the Examiners have allowed you a final attempt in August 2013.
Students who are funded by the National Health do not pay a re-sit fee.
The Student Financial Support Team has a small Summer Fund for students in severe financial hardship. If you cannot pay the re-sit fee and you are not in your final year, you may apply for assistance with the re-sit fee. Please note, the Fund is very limited, so there is no guarantee that we can help you.
Contact the Student Financial Support Team after you get your results on 0161 247 1045. The closing date for applications for re-sit fee assistance is Friday 9th August 2013. Remember, applications to the Emergency Summer Hardship Fund for other types of assistance must be in by Friday 5th July 2013. Please be aware the fund is very limited any awards to assist with re -assessment fees is dependant upon funds being available.
Check your faculty webpage for the timetable of re-sit exams. Timetables are available a bit later in the summer so you might need to check more than once.
If you need somewhere to stay while you are re-sitting examinations or coursework, you can rent a room in Cavendish Hall of Residence, which is close to the Main All Saints Campus, the Library and IT drop in centre. It will cost £15 per night and there is a minimum booking of 4 nights.
Email accommodation@mmu.ac.uk
Please mark your email ‘Accommodation for re-sits’
Tel: +44 (0)161 247 2958
The Muslim Festival of Eid al-Fitr falls on 8th August this year. If you are planning any celebrations please don’t forget that you will still have to hand in any re-sit coursework on Friday 9th August.
Muslim students will be aware that the Holy month of Ramadan is expected to end on Wednesday 7th August 2013. The exact time is dependent on the sighting of the crescent, so allow a day either side.
Ramadan therefore immediately precedes the re-sit period. The University’s Muslim Chaplain has advised that no special provisions or exemptions are necessary for students who have observed the fast. You will not be able to make an exceptional factors claim if you were fasting during the revision period and should continue to work as normal.
The Chaplaincy has issued some helpful guidance on observing the fast, which you can read on the Government website.
As long as you made a serious effort to do your first re-sit(s), you will be given a final re-sit next summer.
You will either have to:
You MUST still enrol in September 2013 as a ‘Repeat without Attendance’ student. This will give you access to Moodle, the Library, and computer drop-in centres.
This means that you do not attend classes. Depending on the nature of your re-sit requirements, you will either hand in re-sit coursework at the appropriate time or come back for the re-sits, usually in May 2014. You must still enrol in September 2013 as a ‘Repeat without Attendance’ student. This will give you access to Moodle, the Library and computer drop-in for the year.
You must keep the University up to date on your contact details by using contact management. Also it is your responsibility to ensure you know the hand-in and examination dates. If in any doubt, contact your SIP or Student Life Office.
Sometimes the Board of Examiners will say that you MUST attend classes in the Unit(s) that you failed. You will have to enrol as an attending student and pay tuition fees, but normally if you are receiving a Student Loan, you will be able to apply to your award agency e.g. Student Finance England for loan support for one extra year. If you pass, the maximum mark you can achieve is the basic pass mark (40%).
However, you can also choose to take the unit again with attendance. Please be aware:
If you re-sit with attendance, you will have to pay the tuition fee for each unit you take. This option therefore requires a considerable financial investment on your part. You might be able to access a Student Loan to do this, however please bear in mind that your maximum entitlement to loan is normally for the standard length of your course plus one year. This includes any loan you might have had for other courses.
We strongly recommend that you check your entitlement with Student Finance England before making a decision to re-sit with attendance, to ensure that if you take out a loan, you will still have enough funding to be able to complete all the remaining years of your course.
Our Student Financial Support Team can also provide information for you. You can contact them:
If you are offered second re-sits next summer and you are here on a student visa, you must read Taking Assessments or Re-sits Guide for International students.
There is a Student Support Officer in each faculty who will be able to give you help and advice on study skills, preparing for re-assessment, academic appeals and exceptional factors. Get further information about how they can help and their contact details.
If you have experienced serious problems or if you think there has been an error in your assessment, you may be able to appeal, but only if you meet certain stringent conditions.
You cannot simply appeal because you think you should have got a better mark. Marks are checked and moderated by your department and overseen by the external examiners. We will not re-mark your work just because you feel you ought to have done better.
Appeals are about assessment, not about the way your course was run. You cannot complain about something you could have raised during the year through the Student Complaint Procedure.
More Stage 2 Academic Appeals are rejected than accepted, so think carefully about whether you really do have a good case as you might waste a lot of time and effort. The Students Union can advise you on whether you have a good case.
If you have to do any reassessment you should continue with your preparation as normal. It is possible that you will not receive a decision until very close to your exam or re-submission date, so do not await the outcome of your appeal before deciding what to do next. Even if your appeal is successful, you will probably still have to take the reassessment. The most common outcome of a successful appeal is that the status of your reassessment will be changed.
Stage 1 appeals should be submitted within 14 days of the date of your results letter. Your appeal should be submitted to the Student Information Point or Student Life Office at your own Faculty or Campus.
You can appeal on either or both of the following grounds:
You can only appeal on this ground if you were unable to disclose the problem to your Faculty Exceptional Factors Panel before the Board of Examiners meeting. You will have to show why you were unable to do this at the correct time. Exceptional Factors are well-publicised, so you will not be able to say that you did not know the correct procedure.
A material irregularity is a serious mistake or error in the way your assessments were carried out, for example, the examiners did not follow the assessment regulations correctly, or they did not include all your marks in the unit calculation, or did not allow you enough time to complete the examination. You must clearly explain the nature of the material irregularity and how it affected your assessment.
Please note: Small faults and errors will not be accepted. The Appeals Panel will have to be convinced that your result would have been different, if the error had not occurred.
If entry to the next year of your course depends on a successful appeal, you may enrol in September 2013 as a ‘repeat without attendance’ student and attend classes informally until the outcome your appeal is known. If your appeal is not successful, you will have to stop attending.
Bear in mind that the normal outcome of a successful appeal is the chance to do the re-sit again, so until you have passed, you will not be able to enrol the next year of your course in any event. Please think very carefully about this option. If your grounds for appeal are not strong, you may end up spending unnecessary time and money waiting for an unsuccessful outcome!
If you are a Tier 4 International student, you must provide proof to MMU International that you have submitted an appeal by emailing internationalenrol@mmu.ac.uk. They only need the receipt from your SIP or Life Office. Send the appeal application to your SIP or Life Office. The University will report you have submitted an appeal to the UKBA via your CAS. Please do not send your appeal application to MMU International.
Go to the Academic Appeals Procedure web page to find out more.
To print off an application form, scroll down to ‘How do I make an Appeal’ on that page.
You will need to give very clear reasons why you feel the Stage 1 decision is wrong. You must enclose your stage 1 decision letter and a copy of your stage 1 application with your stage 2 application.
Stage 2 Appeals must be submitted on the correct AA1 form within 14 days of the date of your Stage 1 decision letter. Send your form to:
The Director of Student Services,
Manchester Metropolitan University
Business School & Student Hub
All Saints Campus
Lower Chatham Street
Manchester
M15 6BH
Over the exam period The Counselling Service can help on issues such as relaxation and stress management. It has a wealth of self-help information including the CALM (Computer Aided Lifestyle Management) Relief Series. This is an online multi-media programme available to all students at MMU, that can help with stress, anxiety and other problems.
Go to the Counselling Service website.
Go to the MIND website to find out more about how to cope with exam stress.
The Learner Development Service produces a range study skills support leaflets, including exams revision, referencing, essay writing and a general study guide, which can be downloaded form their website.
Go to the Learner Development Service website.
The Students Union Advice Centre offers help and support on all the main issues affecting students at MMU. It is a specialist, independent unit whose aim is to ensure that your time at university is not lessened through a lack of support or knowledge of your rights. It can also represent you at meetings and hearings, resources permitting.
This page last updated Thursday, 2nd May 2013 · 10:57am