Final Year Results Confusion

i90yb8jtdchuwe

Hey,
I've been wondering about how NUIG deal with students who are between a 2.2 and a 2.1 after their final year exams have been corrected? There's a chance that I might not scrape the 2.1 this semester and will leave me with an overall of a 2.2, but I'm expecting around a 59 average. I was wondering would they take my 61.5 average into account from 2nd year and award me a 2.1? I also read somewhere that if you receive a 59.1% average they will also award you the 2.1, but I'm not sure if there's any truth to this? Hopefully one of my fellow Boards.ie members can help me with this because it's really stressing me out!

filmbuffboy

It might help if you mentioned what course or college you are in.

For the college of Arts its as follows:

You get both individual subject marks and an overall mark which is a combination of both. If your mark in Second Arts was higher than your Final Arts mark, you get an average of both. If your mark in Final Arts is higher than your Second Arts results, the Second Arts result is ignored.

Here’s an example:
2BA
English – 72
Classics –66
Overall 2BA mark = 69

3BA/Final Arts (whichever is more relevant - BA Connect/BA International will be in their fourth year)
English – 74
Classics - 65
Overall 3BA mark = 69.5

Overall English mark = 74 (Final Arts better than Second Arts)
Overall Classics = average of 69 and 65 = 67

Overall BA degree mark = Overall Eng + Overall Classics = (74+67) = 70.5

So you’re walking out with a 1.1 in your BA, even though one of your subjects is at 2.1 level.

i90yb8jtdchuwe

Hi Filmbuffboy,
Sorry for not mentioning it, I'm doing Arts in NUIG so all of the information you just gave me is completely relevant, thanks for replying . I understand about the individual subjects and how those results are awarded, but my question is if I only get say an overall mark of 59% for the year for my final year, and I have 61.5% for my second year, will they combine these and award me the 2.1, or will I be awarded the 2.2? And I was wondering about the claim I read that if you receive a 59.1, then they will give you the 2.1, is there any truth in that?

Ficheall

filmbuffboy wrote: »

Overall Classics = average of 69 and 65 = 67

Are you sure they're weighted equally? I'm not sure what the story is for Arts, but final year in other areas is weighted significantly heavier than the previous year.

Ruire

Ficheall wrote: »

Are you sure they're weighted equally? I'm not sure what the story is for Arts, but final year in other areas is weighted significantly heavier than the previous year.

I always thought the same, but the policy document on the matter states

Calculation of Honours for the BA Degree: In the calculation of honours the combined marks of the Second and Final Years in a subject or the marks of the Final Year only shall be taken into account, whichever shall be most beneficial to the candidate.

Nowhere does it actually say what the weighting is, or even if there is any.

i90yb8jtdchuwe

AFAIK the general norm regarding marking for Arts is only the final years results are counted, but final year results are combined with your 2nd year results if your 2nd year results are better than your final year results. What I need to know though is even though they combine the results of individual subjects to increase an overall mark, will they combine my overall marks from both years if needs be in order for me to be able to receive a 2.1?

leeroybrown

In final Arts your result is the better result of:

• Your final year mark
• 50% of your final year mark + 50% of your second year mark

This is done on a per-subject basis. To my knowledge Arts always use a 50:50 weighting unlike most other schools.

You won't be given a 2.1 if you get 59.1%. You need 60% to get a 2.1. However marks within a certain delta of a grade will be reviewed to see if they need to be marked up (or down) dependent on the result. A result of 59.1% would likely trigger this.

Yes. The results of both years combined can allow you to achieve an over all 2.1.

Lockstep

I can confirm that Arts is weighted between 2nd and final year.
My 2nd year legal science mark was better than my final year legal science mark so they averaged the two for my overall result.
My history mark was higher in final year than 2nd year so this was used by itself.

As Leeroybrown said, if you're on a 59 they're very likely to give you a few extra percentage points in your exams to bring you up to 60 although some lecturers only do this if you've been attending lectures, tutorials and so on.