PGT Exam Performance Feedback Semester

The marks were generally in line with results from previous years and the performance on the questions were usually at the same level for a given student, indicating that the questions were equal in difficulty. The main problems were to do with students running out of time. This was often because they gave a large amount of writing in answer to some of the questions rather than answering the questions more directly and succinctly. It is important to understand that information of relevance to the actual question is what is marked, this is an important skill in examination technique. Most of the marks lost were due to this aspect. At MSc level, question answers should be more than just a repetion of the lecture notes and the questions were designed to probe the students' deeper understanding of the topic. In this respect the exam did test this and the performance of the cohort of students was satisfactory. All bar one student were spread in the range 77% to 45%. In the one exception, the student's marks were consistently low on all questions attempted, indicating a lack of understanding of the material of the whole of the course. The reasons why this was so are therefore individual rather than general.